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 LI G) FIARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 Of ILLINOIS 
 
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 THE 
 
 HISTORY OF DAVID GEIEVE 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 MiUst j)« iirs ^ncuMitbe stljrcitnt, 
 ^elj nur im 6nblkl;£n nacb alien ^tiizxx
 
 THE HISTORY 
 
 OP 
 
 DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 BY 
 
 MES HUMPHRY WAED 
 
 AUTHOR OF ' ROBERT ELSMERE ' 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 
 
 1892 
 
 [All rightx reserven]
 
 V 
 
 ^ 
 
 x"^ 
 
 2^3 
 
 TO 
 
 THE DEAR MEMORY 
 
 OF 
 
 MY MOTHER 
 
 ^
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 OF VOL. I 
 
 BOOK I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHILDHOOD 1 
 
 BOOK II 
 
 YOUTH 249
 
 BOOK I 
 CHILDHOOD
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 ' Tak your hat, Louie ! Yo're alius leavin summat 
 behind yer.' 
 
 ' David, yo go for 't,' said the child addressed to a 
 boy by her side, nodding her head insolently towards 
 the speaker, a tall and bony woman, who stood on the 
 steps the children had just descended, holding out a 
 battered hat. 
 
 ' Yo're a careless thing, Louie,' said the boy, but he 
 went back and took the hat. 
 
 ' Mak her tie it,' said the woman, showing an anti- 
 quated pair of strings. ' If she loses it she needna coom 
 cryin for anudder. She'd lose her yead if it wor loose.' 
 
 Then she turned and went back into the house. It 
 was a smallish house of grey stone, three windows 
 above, two and a door below. Dashes of white on the 
 stone gave, as it were, eyebrows to the windows, and 
 over the door there was a meagre trellised porch, up 
 which gi'ew some now leafless roses and honeysuckles. 
 To the left of the door a scanty bit of garden was 
 squeezed in between the hill, against which the house 
 was set edgeways and the rest of the fiat space, 
 
 VOL. I. u
 
 2 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 occupied by the uneven farmyard, the cart-shed and 
 stable, the cow-houses and duck-pond. This garden 
 contained two shabby apple trees, as yet hardly touched 
 by the spring ; some currant and gooseberry bushes, 
 already fairly green ; and a clump or two of scattered 
 daffodils and wallflowers. The hedge round it was 
 broken through in various places, and it had a casual 
 neglected air. 
 
 The children went their way through the yard. 
 In front of them a flock of some forty sheep and lambs 
 pushed along, guarded by two black short-haii'ed collies. 
 The boy, brandishing a long stick, opened a gate de- 
 plorably in want of mending, and the sheep crowded 
 through, keenly looked after by the dogs, who waited 
 meanwhile on their flanks with heads up, ears cocked, 
 and that air of self-restrained energy which often makes 
 a sheep-dog more human than his master. The field 
 beyond led to a little larch plantation, where a few prim- 
 roses showed among the tufts of long, rich grass, and 
 the drifts of last year's leaves. Here the flock scattered 
 a little, but David and the dogs were after them in a 
 twinkling, and the plantation gate was soon closed on 
 the last bleating mother. Then there was nothing more 
 for the boy to do than to go up to the top of the green 
 rising ground on which the farm stood and see if the 
 gate leading to the moor was safely shut. For the 
 sheep he had been driving were not meant for the open 
 moorland. Their feeding grounds lay in the stone- 
 walled fields round the homestead, and had they strayed
 
 CHILDHOOD 3 
 
 on to the mountain beyond, which was reserved for a 
 hardier Scotch breed, David would have been answer- 
 able. So he strode, whistling, up the hill to have a 
 look at that top gate, while Louie sauntered down to 
 the stream which ran round the lower pastures to wait 
 for him. 
 
 The top gate was fast, but David climbed the wall 
 and stood there a while, hands in his pockets, legs apart, 
 whistling and looking. 
 
 ' They can see t' Downfall from Stockport to-day,' 
 he was saying to himself; ' it's coomin ower like mad.' 
 
 Some distance away in front of him, beyond the 
 undulating heather ground at his feet, rose a magni- 
 ficent curving front of moor, the steep sides of it 
 crowned with black edges and cliffs of grit, the outline 
 of the south-western end sweeping finely up on the 
 right to a purple peak, the king of all the moorland 
 round. No such colour as clothed that bronzed and 
 reddish wall of rock, heather, and bilberry is known to 
 Westmoreland, hardly to Scotland ; it seems to be the 
 peculiar property of that lonely and inaccessible district 
 which marks the mountainous centre of mid-England — 
 the district of Kinder Scout and the High Peak. Be- 
 fore the boy's ranging eye spread the whole western 
 rampart of the Peak — to the right, the highest point, 
 of Kinder Low, to the left, ' edge ' behind ' edge,' till 
 the central rocky mass sank and faded towards the north 
 into milder forms of green and undulating hills. In the 
 very centre of the great curve a white and surging mass 
 
 B 2
 
 4 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 of water cleft tlie mountain from top to bottom, falling 
 straight over the edge, here some two thousand feet 
 above the sea, and roaring downward along an almost 
 precipitous bed into the stream — the Kinder — which 
 swept round the hill on which the boy was standing, 
 and through the valley behind him. In ordinary times 
 the ' Downfall,' as the natives call it, only makes itself 
 visible on the mountain-side as a black ravine of tossed 
 and tumbled rocks. But there had been a late snowfall 
 on the high plateau beyond, followed by heavy rain, and 
 the swollen stream was to-day worthy of its grand set- 
 ting of cliff and moor. On such occasions it becomes a 
 landmark for all the country round, for the cotton- 
 spinning centres of New Mills and Stockport, as well 
 as for the grey and scattered farms which climb the 
 long backs of moorland lying between the Peak and 
 the Cheshire border. 
 
 To-day, also, after the snow and rains of early 
 April, the air was clear again. The sun was shining ; 
 a cold, dry wind was blowing ; there were sounds of 
 spring in the air, and signs of it on the thorns and 
 larches. Far away on the boundary wall of the farm- 
 land a cuckoo was sitting, his long tail swinging behind 
 him, his monotonous note filling the valley ; and over- 
 head a couple of peewits chased each other in the pale, 
 windy blue. 
 
 The keen air, the sun after the rain, sent life and 
 exhilaration through the boy's young limbs. He leapt 
 from the wall, and raced back down the field, his dogs
 
 CHILDHOOD 5 
 
 streaming behind him, the sheep, with their newly 
 dropped lambs, shrinking timidly to either side as he 
 passed. He made for a corner in the wall, vaulted it 
 on to the moor, crossed a rough dam bailt in the stream 
 for sheep-washing purposes, jumped in and out of the 
 two grey-walled sheep-pens beyond, and then made 
 leisurely for a spot in the brook — not the Downfall 
 stream, but the Red Brook, one of its westerly affluents 
 — where he had left a miniature water-wheel at work 
 the day before. Before him and around him spread the 
 brown bosom of Kinder Scout ; the cultivated land was 
 left behind ; here on all sides, as far as the eye could 
 see, was the wild home of heather and plashing water, 
 of grouse and pee^vit, of cloud and breeze. 
 
 The little wheel, shaped from a block of firwood, was 
 turning merrily under a jet of water carefully conducted 
 to it from a neighbouring fall. David went down on 
 hands and knees to examine it. He made some little 
 alteration in the primitive machinery of it, his fingers 
 touching it lightly and neatly, and then, delighted with 
 the success of it, he called Louie to come and look. 
 
 Louie was sitting a few yards further up the stream, 
 crooning to herself as she swung to and fro, and 
 snatching every now and then at some tufts of prim- 
 roses growing near her, which she wrenched away with 
 a hasty, wasteful hand, careless, apparently, whether 
 they reached her lap or merely strewed the turf about 
 her with their torn blossoms. When David called her 
 she gathered up the flowers anyhow in her apron, and
 
 6 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 dawdled towards him, leaving a trail of them behind 
 her. As she reached him, however, she was struck by 
 a book sticking out of his pocket, and, stooping over 
 him, with a sudden hawk-like gesture, as he sprawled 
 head downwards, she tried to get hold of it. 
 
 But he felt her movement. ' Let goo ! ' he said im- 
 periously, and, throwing himself round, while one foot 
 slipped into the water, he caught her hand, with its 
 thin predatory fingers, and pulled the book away. 
 
 ' Yo just leave my books alone, Louie. Yo do 
 'em a mischeef whaniver yo can — an I'll not have it.' 
 
 He turned his handsome, regular face, crimsoned by 
 his position and splashed by the water, towards her 
 with an indignant air. She laughed, and sat herself 
 down again on the grass, looking a very imp of provo- 
 cation. 
 
 ' They're stupid,' she said, shortly. ' They mak 
 yo a stupid gonner ony ways.' 
 
 ' Oh ! do they ? ' he retorted, angrily. ' Bit I'll be 
 even wi yo. I'll tell yo noa moor stories out of 'em, 
 not if yo ast iver so.' 
 
 The girl's mouth curled contemptuously, and she 
 began to gather her primroses into a bunch with an air 
 of the utmost serenity. She was a thin, agile, lightly 
 made creature, apparently about eleven. Her piercing 
 black eyes, when they lifted, seemed to overweight the 
 face, whereof the other features were at present small 
 and pinched. The mouth had a trick of remaining 
 slightly open, showing a line of small pearly teeth ;
 
 CHILDHOOD 7 
 
 the cliiii was a little sharp and shrewish. As for the 
 hair, it promised to be splendid ; at present it was an 
 unkempt, tangled mass, which Hannah Grieve, the 
 children's aunt, for her own credit's sake at chapel, or 
 in the public street, made occasional violent attempts 
 to reduce to order — to very little purpose, so strong 
 and stubborn was the curl of it. The whole figure 
 was out of keeping with the English moorside, with 
 the sheep, and the primroses. 
 
 But so indeed was that of the boy, whose dark 
 colouring was more vivacious and pronounced than his 
 sister's, because the red of his cheek and lip was 
 deeper, while his features, though larger than hers, 
 were more finely regular, and his eyes had the same 
 piercing blackness, the same all-examining keenness, as 
 hers. The yellowish tones of his worn fustian suit and 
 a red Tam-o'-Shanter cap completed the general effect 
 of brilliancy and, as it were, foreignness. 
 
 Having finished his inspection of his water-mill, he 
 scrambled across to the other side of the stream so as to 
 be well out of his sister's way, and, taking out the 
 volume which was stretching his pocket, he began to 
 read it. It was a brown calf-bound book, much worn, 
 and on its title-page it bore the title of ' The Wars of 
 Jerusalem,' of Flavins Josephus, translated by S. Calmet, 
 and a date somewhere in the middle of the eighteenth 
 century. To this antique fare the boy settled himself 
 down. The two collies lay couched beside him ; a stone- 
 chat perched on one or other of the great blocks which
 
 8 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 lay scattered over the heath gave out his clinking 
 note ; while every now and then the loud peevish 
 cluck of the grouse came from the distant sides of 
 the Scout. 
 
 Titus was now making his final assault on the 
 Temple. The Zealots were gathered in the innermost 
 court, frantically beseeching Heaven for a sign ; the 
 walls, the outer approaches of the Sanctuary were 
 choked with the dying and the dead. David sat 
 absorbed, elbows on knees, his face framed in his 
 hands. Suddenly the descent of something cold and 
 clammy on his bent neck roused him with a most 
 unpleasant shock. 
 
 Quick as lightning he faced round, snatching at his 
 assailant ; but Louie was off, scudding among the 
 bilberry hillocks with peals of laughter, while the slimy 
 moss she had just gathered from the edges of the 
 brook sent cold creeping streams into the recesses of 
 David's neck and shoulders. He shook himself free of 
 the mess as best he could, and rushed after her. For a 
 long time he chased her in vain, then her foot tripped, 
 and he came up with her just as she rolled into the 
 heather, gathered up like a hedgehog against attack, 
 her old hat held down over her ears and face. David fell 
 upon her and chastised her ; but his fisticuffs probably 
 looked more formidable than they felt, for Louie 
 laughed provokingly all the time, and when he stopped 
 out of breath she said exultantly, as she sprang up, 
 holding her skirts round her read}^ for another flight.
 
 CHILDHOOD 9 
 
 ' It's greened aw yur neck and yur collar — luvely ! 
 Doan't yo be nassty for nothink next time ! ' 
 
 And off she ran. 
 
 ^ If yo meddle wi me ony moor,' he shouted after 
 her fiercely, ' yo see what I'll do ! ' 
 
 But in reality the male was helpless, as usual. He 
 went ruefully down to the brook, and loosening his 
 shirt and coat tried to clean his neck and hair. Then, 
 extremely sticky and uncomfortable, he went back to 
 his seat and his book, his wrathful eyes taking careful 
 note meanwhile of Louie's whereabouts. And thence- 
 forward he read, as it were, on guard, looking up every 
 other minute. 
 
 Louie established herself some way up the further 
 slope, in a steep stony nook, under two black boulders, 
 which protected her rear in case of reprisals from 
 David. Time passed away. David, on the other side 
 of the brook, revelling in the joys of battle, and all 
 the more alive to them perhaps because of the watch 
 kept on Louie by one section of his brain, was con- 
 scious of no length in the minutes. But Louie's mood 
 gradually became one of extreme flatness. All her 
 resources were for the moment at an end. She could 
 think of no fresh torment for David ; besides, she knew 
 that she was observed. She had destroyed all the scanty 
 store of primroses along the brook ; gathered rushes, 
 begun to plait them, and thrown them away ; she had 
 found a grouse's nest among the dead fern, and, con- 
 trary to the most solemn injunctions of uncle and
 
 lo THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 keeper, enforced by the direst threats, had purloined 
 and broken an Qgg\ and still dinner-time delayed. 
 Perhaps, too, the cold blighting wind, which soon 
 made her look blue and pinched, tamed her insensibly. 
 At any rate, she got up after about an hour, and coolly 
 walked across to David. 
 
 He looked up at her with a quick frown. But she 
 sat down, and, clasping her hands round her knees, 
 while the primroses she had stuck in her hat dangled 
 over her defiant eyes, she looked at him with a 
 grinning composure. 
 
 ' Yo can read out if yo want to,' she remarked. 
 
 ^ Yo doan't deserve nowt, an I shan't,' said David, 
 shortly. 
 
 'Then I'll tell Aunt Hannah about how yo let 
 t' lambs stray lasst evenin, and about yor readin at 
 neet.' 
 
 ' Yo may tell her aw t' tallydiddles yo can think 
 on,' was the unpromising reply. 
 
 Louie threw all the scorn possible into her forced 
 smile, and then, dropping full-length into the heather, 
 she began to sing at the top of a shrill, unpleasing 
 voice, mainly, of course, for the sake of harrying any- 
 one in her neighbourhood who might wish to read. 
 
 ' Stop that squealin ! ' David commanded, peremp- 
 torily. Whereupon Louie sang louder than before. 
 
 David looked round in a fury, but his fury was, ap- 
 parently, instantly damped by the inward conviction, 
 born of long experience, that he could do nothing to
 
 CHILDHOOD II 
 
 help himself. He sprang up, and thrust his book into 
 his pocket. 
 
 ' Noboiy ull mak owt o' yo till yo get a bastin twice 
 a day, wi an odd lick extra for Sundays,' he remarked 
 to her with grim emphasis when he had reached what 
 seemed to him a safe distance. Then he turned and 
 strode up the face of the hill, the dogs at his heels. 
 Louie turned on her elbow, and threw such small stones 
 as she could discover among the heather after him, but 
 they fell harmlessly about him, and did not answer 
 their purpose of provoking him to turn round again. 
 
 She observed that he was going up to the old 
 Smithy on the side of Kinder Low, and in a few minutes 
 she got up and sauntered lazily after him. 
 
 ' T' owd smithy ' had been the enchanted ground of 
 David's childhood. It was a ruined building standing 
 deep in heather, half-way up the mountain-side, and 
 ringed by scattered blocks and tabular slabs of grit. 
 Here in times far remote — beyond the memory of even 
 the oldest inhabitant — the millstones of the district, 
 which gave their name to the ' millstone grit ' forma- 
 tion of the Peak, were fashioned. High up on the 
 dark moorside stood what remained of the primitive 
 workshop. The fire-marked stones of the hearth were 
 plainly visible ; deep in the heather near lay the broken 
 jambs of the window ; a stone doorway with its lintel 
 was still standing ; and on the slope beneath it, hardly 
 to be distinguished now from the great primaeval blocks 
 out of which they had sprung and to which they were
 
 12 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 fast returning, reposed two or three huge mill-stones. 
 Perhaps they bordered some ancient track, climbed by 
 the millers of the past when they came to this remote 
 spot to give their orders ; but, if so, the track had long 
 since sunk out of sight in the heather, and no visible 
 link remained to connect the history of this high and 
 lonely place with that of those teeming valleys hidden 
 to west and north among the moors, the dwellers 
 wherein must once have known it well. From the old 
 threshold the eye commanded a wilderness of moors, 
 rising wave-like one after another, from the green 
 swell just below whereon stood Reuben Grieve' s farm, to 
 the far-distant Alderley Edge. In the hollows between, 
 dim tall chimneys veiled in mist and smoke showed 
 the places of the cotton towns — of Hayfield, New Mills, 
 Staley bridge, Stockport ; while in the far north-west, any 
 gazer to whom the country-side spoke familiarly, might, 
 in any ordinary clearness of weather, look for and find 
 the eternal smoke-cloud of Manchester. 
 
 So the deserted smithy stood as it were spectator 
 for ever of that younger, busier England which 
 wanted it no more. Human life notwithstanding had 
 left on it some very recent traces. On the lintel of 
 the ruined door two names were scratched deep into 
 the whitish under-grain of the black weather-beaten 
 grit. The upper one ran : ' David Suveret Grieve, 
 Sept. 15, 1863 ; ' the lower, ' Louise Stephanie Grieve, 
 Sept. 15, 1863.' They were written in bold round- 
 hand, and could be read at a considerable distance.
 
 CHILDHOOD 13 
 
 During the nine months they had been there, many a 
 rustic passer-by had been stopped by them, especially 
 by the oddity of the name Suveret, which tormented 
 the Derbyshire mouth. 
 
 In a corner of the walls stood something more 
 puzzling still — a large iron pan, filled to the brim with 
 water, and firmly bedded on a foundation of earth and 
 stones. So still in general was the shining sheltered 
 round, that the branches of the mountain ash which 
 leant against the crumbling wall, the tufts of hard fern 
 growing among the stones, the clouds which sailed over- 
 head, were all delicately mirrored in it. That pan was 
 David Grieve's dearest possession, and those reflections, 
 so magical, and so alive, had contrived for him many a 
 half-hour of almost breathless pleasure. He had carried it 
 off from the refuse-yard of a foundry in the valley, where 
 he had a friend in one of the apprentices. The farm 
 donkey and himself had dragged it thither on a certain 
 never-to-be-forgotten day, when Uncle Keuben had 
 been on the other side of the mountain at a shepherds' 
 meeting in the Woodlands, while Aunt Hannah was 
 safely up to her elbows in the washtub. Boy's back 
 and donkey's back had nearly broken under the task, 
 but there the pan stood at last, the delight of David's 
 heart. In a crevice of the wall beside it, hidden jealously 
 from the passer-by, lay the other half of that perpetual 
 entertainment it provided — a store of tiny boats fash- 
 ioned by David, and another friend, the lame minister 
 of the ' Christian Brethren ' congregation at Clough
 
 14 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 End, the small factory town just below Kinder, who 
 was a sea-captain's son, and with a knife and a bit of 
 deal could fashion you any craft you pleased. These 
 boats David only brought out on rare occasions, very 
 seldom admitting Louie to the show. But when he 
 pleased they became fleets, and sailed for new conti- 
 nents. Here were the ships of Captain Cook, there 
 the ships of Columbus. On one side of the pan lay 
 the Spanish main, on the other the islands of the South 
 Seas. A certain tattered copy of the ' Royal Magazine,' 
 with pictures, which lay in Uncle Reuben's cupboard 
 at home, provided all that for David was to be known 
 of these names and places. But fancy played pilot and 
 led the way ; she conjured up storms and islands and 
 adventures ; and as he hung over his pan high on the 
 Derbyshire moor, the boy, like Sidney of old, ' sailed 
 the seas where there was never sand' — the vast and 
 viewless oceans of romance.
 
 CHILDHOOD 15 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Once safe in the Smithy, David recovered his temper. 
 If Louie followed him, which was probable, he would 
 know better how to deal with her here, with a wall at 
 his back and a definite area to defend, than he did in the 
 treacherous openness of the heath. However, just as 
 he was settling himself down, with a sigh of relief, 
 between the pan and the wall, he caught sight of some- 
 thing through one of the gaps of the old ruin which 
 made him fling down his book and run to the doorway. 
 There, putting his fingers to his mouth, he blew a 
 shrill whistle along the side of the Scout. A bent 
 figure on a distant path stopped at the sound. It was 
 an old man, with a plaid hanging from his shoulders. 
 He raised the stick he held, and shook it in recognition 
 of David's signal. Then resuming his bowed walk, he 
 came slowly on, followed by an old hound, whose gait 
 seemed as feeble as his master's. 
 
 David leant against the doorway waiting. Louie, 
 meanwhile, was lounging in the heather just below liim, 
 having very soon caught him up. 
 
 ' What d' yo want 'im for ? ' she asked contemptu-
 
 1 6 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 ously, as the new-comer approached : ' he'd owt to be 
 in th' sylum. Aunt Hannah says he's gone that silly, 
 he owt to be took up.' 
 
 ' Well, he woan't be, then,' retorted David. ' Theer's 
 nobory about as ull lay a finger on 'im. He doan't do 
 her no harm, nor yo noather. Women foak and gells 
 alius want to be wooryin soomthin.' 
 
 ' Aunt Hannah says he lost his wits wi fuddlin," 
 repeated Louie shrilly, striking straighter still for what 
 she knew to be one of David's tenderest points — his 
 friendship for ' owd 'Lias Dawson,' the queer dreamer, 
 who, fifteen years before, had been the schoolmaster of 
 Frimley Moor End, and in local esteem ' t' cliverest 
 mon abeawt t' Peak.' 
 
 David with difficulty controlled a hot inclination to 
 fall upon his sister once more. Instead, however, he 
 affected not to hear her, and shouted a loud ' Good 
 mornin ' to the old man, who was toiling up the knoll 
 on which the smithy stood. 
 
 'Lias responded feebly, panting hard the while. 
 He sank down on a stone outside the smithy, and for a 
 while had neither breath nor voice. Then he began to 
 look about him ; his heaving chest subsided, and there 
 was a rekindling of the strange blue eyes. He wore a 
 high white stock and neckcloth ; his plaid hung round 
 his emaciated shoulders with a certain antique dignity ; 
 his rusty wideawake covered hair still abundant and 
 even curly, but snow-white ; the face, with its white 
 eyebrows, was long, thin, and full of an ascetic delicacy.
 
 CHILDHOOD 17 
 
 ' Wal, Davy, my lad,' the old man said at last, with 
 a sort of pompous mildness ; ' I winna blame yo for 't, 
 but yo interrupted me sadly wi yur whistlin. I ha 
 been occupied this day wi business o' cjrilai import- 
 ance. His Majesty King Charles has been wi me 
 since seven o'clock this momin. And for th' fust time 
 I ha been gettin reet to th' bottom o' things wi 
 him. I ha been prohin him, Davy — probin him. 
 He couldno riddle through wi lees ; I kept him to 't, 
 as yo mun keep a horse to a jump — straight an tight. 
 I had it aw out about Strafford, an t' Five Members, an 
 thoose dirty deal ins wi th' Irish devils ! Yo should 
 ha yerd it, Davy — yo should, I'll uphowd yo ! ' 
 
 And placing his stick between his knees, the old man 
 leant his hands upon it, with a meditative and judicial 
 air. The boy stood looking down at him, a broad smile 
 lighting up the dark and vivid face. Old 'Lias supplied 
 him with a perpetual ' spectacle ' which never palled. 
 
 ' Coe him back, 'Lias, he's soomwheer about. Yo 
 need nobbut coe him, an he'll coom.' 
 
 'Lias looked fatuously pleased. He lifted his head 
 and affected to scan the path along which he had just 
 travelled. 
 
 * Aye, I daur say he's not far. — Yor Majesty ! ' 
 
 And 'Lias laid his head on one side and listened. 
 In a few seconds a cunning smile stole over his lips. 
 
 ' Wal, Davy, yo're in luck. He's noan so onwillin, 
 we'st ha him here in a twinklin. Yo may coe him 
 mony things, but yo conno coe him proud. Nua, as 
 
 VOL. I. C
 
 i8 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 I've fund him, Charles Stuart has no soart o' pride 
 about him. Aye, theer yo are ! Sir, your Majesty's 
 obleeged an humble servant ! ' 
 
 And, raising his hand to his hat, the old man took 
 it off and swept it round with a courtly deliberation. 
 Then replacing it, he sat with his face raised, as though 
 to one standing near, his whole attitude full of a careful 
 and pompous dignity. 
 
 ' Now then, yor Majesty,' said 'Lias grimly, ' I'st 
 ha to put that question to yo, yance moor, yo wor 
 noan so well pleased wi this mornin. But yo 
 shouldno be soa tender, mon ! Th' truth can do yo 
 noa harm, wheer yo are, an I'm nobbut askin for 
 informasJiiiri s sake. Soa out wi it ; I'st not use it agen 
 yo. That — ivee — hit — d — damned — imper^ — man, what 
 sent poor Strafford to his eend — jo mind it? — aye, \it 
 yo do ! Well, now ' — and the old man's tone grew 
 gently seductive — ' explain yursel. We'n had f/^eiVtale,' 
 and he pointed away to some imaginary accusers. ' But 
 yo mun trust an Englishman's sense o' fair play. Say 
 your say. We 'st gie yo a varra patient hearin.' 
 
 And with chin thrown up, and his half-blurred eyes 
 blinking under their white lashes, 'Lias waited with a 
 bland imperativeness for the answer. 
 
 ' Eh ? ' said 'Lias at last, frowning and hollowing his 
 hand to his ear. 
 
 He listened another few seconds, then he dropped 
 his hand sharply. 
 
 ' What's 'at yo're sayin ? ' he asked hastily ; ' 'at
 
 CHILDHOOD 19 
 
 yo couldno help it, not wliativer — that i' truth yo had 
 nothin to do wi 't, no moor than mysel — that yo wor 
 forcit to it — willy-nilly — by them devils o' Parliament 
 foak — by Mr. Pym and his loike, wi whom, if God- 
 amighty ha' not reckoned since, theer's no moor justice 
 i' His Kingdom than yo found i' yours ? ' 
 
 The words came out with a rush, tumbling over one 
 another till they suddenly broke off in a loud key of 
 indignant scorn. Then 'Lias fell silent a moment, and 
 slowly shook his head over the inveterate shuffling of 
 the House of Staart. 
 
 ' 'Twinna do, man — 'twinna do,' he said at last, with 
 an air of fine reproof. ' He wor your friend^ wor that 
 poor sinner Strafford — your awn familiar friend, as t' 
 Psalm says. I'm not takin up a brief for him, t' Lord 
 knows ! He wor but meetin his deserts, to my 
 thinkin, when his yed went loupin. But yo put a 
 black mark agen ijore name when yo signed that bit 
 paper for your awn skin's sake. Naw, naw, man, yo 
 should ha lost your awn yed a bit sooner fust. Eh, 
 it wor base — it wor cooardly ! ' 
 
 'Lias's voice dropped, and he fell muttering to 
 himself indistinctly. David, bending over him, could 
 not make out whether it was Charles or his interlo- 
 cutor speaking, and began to be afraid that the old 
 man's performance was over before it had well begun. 
 But on the contrary, 'Lias emerged with fresh energy 
 from the gulf of inarticulate argument in which hia 
 poor wits seemed to have lost themselves awhile. 
 
 e2
 
 20 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 ' But I'm no blamin yo awthegither,' he cried, 
 raising himself, with a protesting wave of the hand. 
 ' Theer's naw mak o' mischief i' this world, but t' 
 women are at t' bottom o't. Whar's that proud foo of 
 a wife o' yourn ? Send her here, man ; send her here ! 
 'Lias Dawson ull mak her hear reason ! Now, Davy ! ' 
 
 And the old man drew the lad to him with one 
 hand, while he raised a finger softly with the other. 
 
 ' Just study her, Davy, my lad,' he said in an 
 undertone, which swelled louder as his excitement 
 grew, ' theer she stan's, by t' side o' t' King. She's a 
 gay good-lookin female, that I'll confess to, but study 
 her; look at her curls, Davy, an her paint, an her 
 nakedness. For shame, madam ! Goo hide that neck 
 o' yourn, goo hide it, I say ! An her fal daddies, an 
 her jewles, an her ribbons. Is that a woman — a 
 French hizzy like that — to get a King out o' trooble, 
 wha's awready lost aw t' wits he wor born wi ? ' 
 
 And with sparkling eyes and outstretched arm 
 'Lias pointed sternly into vacancy. Thrilled with in- 
 voluntary awe the boy and girl looked round them. 
 For, in spite of herself, Louie had come closer, little by 
 little, and was now sitting cross-legged in front of 'Lias. 
 Then Louie's shrill voice broke in— 
 
 ' Tell us what she's got on ! ' And the girl leant 
 eagerly forward, her magnificent eyes kindling into 
 interest. 
 
 * What she's got on, my lassie ? Eh, but I'm feart 
 your yead, too, is fu' o' gauds ! — Wal, it's but nateral to
 
 CHILDHOOD 2 1 
 
 females. She's aw in white satin, my lassie, — an in 
 her brown hair theer's pearls, an a blue ribbon just 
 howdin down t' little luve-locks on her forehead — an on 
 her saft neck theer's pearls again — not soa white, by a 
 thoosand mile, as her white skin — an t' lace fa's ower 
 her proud shoothers, an down her luvely arms — an 
 she looks at me wi her angry eyes — Eh, but she's a 
 queen ! ' cried 'Lias, in a sudden outburst of admira- 
 tion. ' She hath been a persecutor o' th' saints — a 
 varra Jeezebel — the Lord hath put her to shame — but 
 she's moor sperrit — moor o' t' blood o' kingship i' her 
 little finger, nor Charles theer in aw his body ! ' 
 
 And by a strange and crazy reversal of feeling, the 
 old man sat in a kind of ecstasy, enamoured of his own 
 creation, looking into thin air. As for Louie, during 
 the description of the Queen's dress she had drunk in 
 every word with a greedy attention, her changing eyes 
 fixed on the speaker's face. When he stopped, however, 
 she drew a long breath. 
 
 ^ It's aw lees ! ' she said scornfully. 
 ' Howd your tongue, Louie ! ' cried David, angrily. 
 But 'Lias took no notice. He was talking again 
 very fast, but incoherently. Hampden, Pym, Fairfax, 
 Falkland — the great names clattered past every now 
 and then, like horsemen, through a maze of words, but 
 with no perceptible order or purpose. The phrases 
 concerning them came to nothing ; and though there 
 were apparently many voices speaking, nothing intel- 
 ligible could be made out.
 
 22 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 When next the mists cleared a little from the old 
 visionary's brain, David gathered that Cromwell was 
 close by, defending himself with difficulty, apparently, 
 like Charles, against 'Lias's assaults. In his youth 
 and middle age — until, in fact, an event of some pathos 
 and mystery had broken his life across, and cut him off 
 from his profession — 'Lias had been a zealous teacher 
 and a voracious reader; and through the dreams of 
 fifteen years the didactic faculty had persisted and 
 grown amazingly. He played schoolmaster now to all 
 the heroes of history. Whether it were Elizabeth 
 wrangling with Mary Stuart, or Cromwell marshalling 
 his Ironsides, or Buckingham falling under the assassin's 
 dagger at 'Lias's feet, or Napoleon walking restlessly 
 up and down the deck of the ' Bellerophon,' 'Lias 
 rated them everyone. He was lord of a shadow world, 
 wherein he walked with kings and queens, warriors 
 and poets, putting them one and all superbly to rights. 
 Yet so subtle were the old man's wits, and so bright 
 his fancy, even in derangement, that he preserved 
 through it all a considerable measure of dramatic 
 fitness. He gave his puppets a certain freedom; he 
 let them state their case ; and threw almost as much 
 ingenuity into the pleading of it as into the refuting of 
 it. Of late, since he had made friends with Davy 
 Grieve, he had contracted a curious habit of weaving 
 the boy into his visions. 
 
 ' Davy, what's your opinion o' that ? ' or, ' Davy, my 
 lad, did yo iver hear sich clit-clat i' your life ? ' or again.
 
 CHILDHOOD 23 
 
 ^ Davy, yo'll not be misled, surely, by sicli a piece o' 
 speshul-pleadin as that ? ' 
 
 So tbe appeals would run, and tlie boy, at first be- 
 wildered, and even irritated by tliem, as by something 
 which threw hindrances in the way of the only dramatic 
 entertainment the High Peak was likely to aflford him, 
 had learnt at last to join in them with relish. Many 
 meetings with 'Lias on the moorside, which the old seer 
 made alive for both of them — the plundering of 'Lias's 
 books, whence he had drawn the brown ' Josephus ' in 
 his pocket — these had done more than anything else to 
 stock the boy's head with its present strange jumble of 
 knowledge and ideas. Knoidedge^ indeed, it scarcely 
 was, but rather the materials for a certain kind of 
 excitement. 
 
 ' Wal, Davy, did yo hear that ? ' said 'Lias, presently, 
 looking round on the boy with a doubtful countenance, 
 after Cromwell had given an unctuous and highly 
 Biblical account of the slaughter at Drogheda and its 
 reasons. 
 
 ' How mony did he say he killed at that place ? ' 
 asked the boy sharply. 
 
 ^ Thoosands,' said Dawson, solemnly. ' Theer was 
 naw mercy asked nor gi'en. And those wha escaped 
 knockin on t' yead, were aw sold as slaves — every mon 
 jock o' them ! ' 
 
 A strong light of anger showed itself in David's face. 
 
 ' Then he wor a cantin murderer ! Yo muu tell 
 him so ! If I'd my way, he'd hang for 't ! '
 
 24 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 * Eh, laddie, they were nowt but rebels an Papists,' 
 said the old man, complacently. 
 
 '• Don't yo becall Papists ! ' cried David, fiercely, 
 facing round upon him. ' My mither wor a Papist.' 
 
 A curious change of expression appeared on 'Lias's 
 face. He put his hand behind his ear that he might 
 hear better, turned a pair of cunning eyes on David, 
 while his lips pressed themselves together. 
 
 ' Your mither wor a Papist ? an your feyther wor 
 Sandy Grieve. Ay, ay — I've yeerd tell strange things 
 o' Sandy Grieve's wife,' he said slowly. 
 
 Suddenly Louie, who had been lying full length on 
 her back in the sun, with her hat over her face, appa- 
 rently asleep, sat bolt upright. 
 
 ' Tell us what about her,' she said imperiously. 
 
 * Noa — noa,' said the old man, shaking his head, 
 while a sort of film seemed to gather over the eyes, and 
 the face and features relaxed — fell, as it were, into their 
 natural expression of weak senility, which so long as 
 he was under the stress of his favourite illusions was 
 hardly apparent. 'But it's true— it's varra true — 
 I've yeerd tell strange things about Sandy Grieve's 
 wife.' 
 
 And still aimlessly shaking his head, he sat staring 
 at the opposite side of the ravine, the lower jaw drop- 
 ping a little. 
 
 ' He knows nowt about it,' said David, roughly, the 
 light of a sombre, half-reluctant curiosity, which had 
 arisen in his look, dying down.
 
 CHILDHOOD 25 
 
 He threw himself on the grass by the dogs, and 
 began teasing and playing with them. Meanwhile 
 Louie sat studying 'Lias with a frowning hostility, 
 making faces at him now and then by way of amuse- 
 ment. To disappoint the impetuous will embodied in 
 that small frame was to commit an offence of the first 
 order. 
 
 But one might as well make faces at a stone post as 
 at old 'Lias when his wandering fit was on him . When 
 the entertainment palled, Louie got up with a yawn, 
 meaning to lounge back to the farm and investigate the 
 nearness of dinner. But, as she turned, something 
 caught her attention. It was the gleam of a pool, far 
 away beyond the Downfall, on a projecting spur of the 
 moor. 
 
 ' What d' yo coe that bit watter ? ' she asked David, 
 suddenly pointing to it. 
 
 David rolled himself round on his face, and took a 
 look at the bluish patch on the heather. 
 
 ' It hasna got naw name,' he said, at a venture. 
 
 ' Then yo're a stoopid, for it has,' replied Louie, 
 triumphantly. ' It 's t' Mermaid Pool. Theer wor a 
 Manchester mon at Wigsons' last week, telling aw 
 maks o' tales. Theer 's a mermaid lives in 't — a 
 woman, I tell tha, wi a fish's tail — it's in a book, an 
 he read it out, soa theer — an on Easter Eve neet she 
 cooms out, an walks about t' Scout, combin her hair — 
 an if onybody sees her an wishes for soomthin, they 
 get it, sartin sure ; an '
 
 26 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 ' Mermaids is just faddle an' nonsense,' interrupted 
 David, tersely. 
 
 ' Oh, is they ? Then I spose books is faddle. Most 
 on 'em are — t' kind of books yo like — I'll uphowd yo ! ' 
 
 ' Oh, is they ? ' said David, mimicking her. ' Wal, 
 I like 'em, yo see, aw t' same. I tell yo, mermaids is 
 nonsense, cos I Iznonj they are. Theer was yan at Hayfield 
 Fair, an the fellys they nearly smashed t' booth down, 
 cos they said it wor a cheat. Theer was just a gell, an 
 they 'd stuffed her into a fish's skin and sewed 'er up ; 
 an when yo went close yo could see t' stuffin runnin 
 out of her. An theer was a man as held 'er up by a wire 
 roun her waist, an waggled her i' t' watter. But t' foak 
 as had paid sixpence to coom in, they just took an 
 tore down t' place, an they 'd 'a dookt t' man an t' gell 
 boath, if th' coonstable hadn't coom. Naw, mermaids 
 is faddle,' he repeated contemptuously. 
 
 ' Faddle ? ' repeated 'Lias, interrogatively. 
 
 The children started. They had supposed 'Lias 
 was off doting and talking gibberish for the rest of 
 the morning. But his tone was brisk, and as David 
 looked up he caught a queer flickering brightness in 
 the old man's eye, which showed him that 'Lias was 
 once more capable of furnishing amusement or infor- 
 mation. 
 
 ' What do they coe that bit watter, 'Lias ? ' he 
 inquired, pointing to it. 
 
 ' That bit watter ? ' repeated 'Lias, eyeing it. A 
 sort of vague trouble came into his face, and his
 
 CHILDHOOD 27 
 
 wrinkled hands lying on his stick began to twitch 
 nervously. 
 
 * Aye — theer 's a Manchester man been cramming 
 Wigsons wi tales — says he gets era out of a book — 
 bout a woman 'at walks t' Scout Easter Eve neet, — an 
 a lot o' ninny-hommer's talk. Yo niver heerd nowt 
 about it — did yo, 'Lias ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, yo did, Mr. Dawson — now, didn't yo ? ' said 
 Louie, persuasively, enraged that David would never 
 accept information from her, while she was always 
 expected to take it from him. 
 
 ' A woman — 'at walks t' Scout,' said 'Lias, uncer- 
 tainly, flushing as he spoke. 
 
 Then, looking tremulously from his companions to 
 the pool, he said, angrily raising his stick and shaking 
 it at David, ' Davy, yo're takin advantage — Davy, yo're 
 doin what yo owt not. If my Margret were here, 
 she 'd let yo know ! ' 
 
 The words rose into a cry of quavering passion. 
 The children stared at him in amazement. But as 
 Davy, aggrieved, was defending himself, the old man 
 laid a violent hand on his arm and silenced him. His 
 eyes, which were black and keen still in the blanched 
 face, were riveted on the gleaming pool. His features 
 worked as though under the stress of some possessing 
 force ; a shiver ran through the emaciated limbs. 
 
 'Oh! yo want to know abeawt Jenny Crum's pool, do 
 yo ? ' he siaid at last in a low agitated voice. ' Nobbut 
 look, my lad ! — ^^nobbut look ! — an see for yoursen '
 
 28 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 He paused, his chest heaving, his eye fixed. Then, 
 suddenly, he broke out in a flood of passionate speech, 
 still gripping David. 
 
 ' Passon Maine ! Passon Maine ! — ha yo got her, 
 th' owd woman? Aye, aye — sure enough — 'at 's she 
 — as yo're aw drivin afore yo — hoontit like a wild beeast 
 — wi her grey hair streamin, and her hands tied — 
 Ah ! ' — and the old man gave a wild cry, which startled 
 both the children to their feet. ^ Conno yo hear her ? — 
 eh, but it's enough to tear a body's heart out to hear 
 an owd woman scream like that ! ' 
 
 He stopped, trembling, and listened, his hand hol- 
 lowed to his ear. Louie looked at her brother and 
 laughed nervously ; but her little hard face had 
 paled. David laid hold of her to keep her quiet, and 
 shook himself free of 'Lias. But 'Lias took no notice 
 of them now at all, his changed seer's gaze saw nothing 
 but the distance and the pool. 
 
 ' Are yo quite sure it wor her, Passon ? ' he went on, 
 appealingly. ' She's nobbut owd, an it's a far cry fro 
 her bit cottage to owd Needham's Farm. An th' chilt 
 might ha deed, and t' cattle might ha strayed, and t' 
 geyats might ha opened o' theirsels ! Yo'll not dare 
 to speak agen that. They might ? Ay, ay, we aw know 
 t' devil's strong ; but she's eighty-one year coom 
 
 Christmas — an — an . Doan't, chant let t' childer 
 
 see, nor t' yoong gells ! If yo let em see sich seets 
 they'll breed yo wolves, not babes ! Ah ! ' 
 
 And again 'Lias gave the same cry, and stood 
 half risen, his hands on his staff, looking.
 
 CHILDHOOD 
 
 29 
 
 ' What is it, 'Lias ? ' said David, eagerly ; ' what is 't 
 yo see ? ' 
 
 ' Theer's my grandfeyther,' said 'Lias, almost in a 
 whisper, ' an owd Needham an his two brithers, an 
 yoong Jack Needham's woife — her as losst her babby 
 — an yoong lads an lasses fro Clough End, childer 
 awmost, and t' coonstable, an Passon Maine — Ay — ay 
 — yo've doon it ! yoVe doon it ! She'll mak naw moor 
 mischeef neets — she's gay quiet now ! T' watter's got 
 her fasst enough ! ' 
 
 And, drawing himself up to his full height, the old 
 man pointed a quivering finger at the pool. 
 
 ' Ay, it's got her — an your stones are tied fasst ! 
 
 Passon Maine says she's safe — that yo'll see her naw 
 
 moor — 
 
 While holly sticks be green, 
 
 While stone on Kinder Scoot be seen. 
 
 But / tell yo, Passon Maine lees ! I tell yo t' witch ull 
 ivalli — t' witch ull v-alk ! ' 
 
 For several seconds 'Lias stood straining forward — 
 out of himself — a tragic and impressive figure. Then, 
 in a moment, from that distance his weird gift had been 
 re-peopling, something else rose towards him — some 
 hideous memory, as it seemed, of personal anguish, 
 personal fear. The exalted seer's look vanished, the 
 tension \\ ithin gave way, the old man shrank together. 
 He fell back heavily on the stone, hiding his face in his 
 hands, and muttering to himself. 
 
 The children looked at each other oddly. Then 
 David, half afraid, touched him.
 
 30 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 ' What's t' matter, 'Lias ? Are yo bad ? ' 
 
 The old man did not move. They caught some 
 disjointed words, — ^ cold — ay, t' neet's cold, varra cold ! ' 
 
 * 'Lias ! ' shouted David. 
 
 'Lias looked up startled, and shook his head feebly. 
 
 ' Are yo bad, 'Lias ? ' 
 
 ' Ay ! ' said the old schoolmaster, in the voice of one 
 speaking through a dream — ' ay, varra bad, varra cold 
 — I mun — lig me down — a bit.' 
 
 And he rose feebly. David instinctively caught 
 hold of him, and led him to a corner close by in the 
 ruined walls, where the heather and bilberry grew thick 
 up to the stones. 'Lias sank down, his head fell 
 against the wall, and a light and restless sleep seemed 
 to take possession of him. 
 
 David stood studying him, his hands in his pockets. 
 Never in all his experience of him had 'Lias gone 
 through such a performance as this. What on earth 
 did it mean? There was more in it than appeared, 
 clearly. He would tell Margaret, 'Lias's old wife, who 
 kept him and tended him like the apple of her eye. 
 And he would find out about the pool, anyway. Jemuj 
 Crumbs j)ool ? What on earth did that mean ? The 
 name had never reached his ears before. Of course 
 Uncle Eeuben would know. The boy eyed it curiously, 
 the details of 'Lias's grim vision returning upon him. 
 The wild circling moor seemed suddenly to have gained 
 a mysterious interest. 
 
 ' Didn't I tell yo he wor gone silly ? ' said Louie, 
 triumphantly, at his elbow.
 
 CHILDHOOD 31 
 
 ' He's not gone that silly, onyways, but he can freeten 
 little gells,' remarked David, dryly, instinctively putting 
 out an arm, meanwhile, to prevent her disturbing the 
 poor sleeper. 
 
 ' I worn't freetened,' insisted Louie ; ^ ijo were ! He 
 may skrike aw day if he likes — for aw I care. He'll be 
 runnin into hedges by dayleet soon. Owd churn-yed ! ' 
 
 ' Howd your clatterin tongue ! ' said David, angi-ily, 
 pushing her out of the doorway. She lifted a loose sod 
 of heather, which lay just outside, flung it at him, and 
 then took to her heels, and made for the farm and 
 dinner, \A\h. the speed of a wild goat. 
 
 David brushed his clothes, took a stroll with the 
 dogs, and recovered his temper as best he might. 
 When he came back, pricked by the state of his appe- 
 tite, to see whether 'Lias had recovered enough sanity 
 to get home, he found the old man sitting up, looking 
 strangely white and exhausted, and fumbling, in a dazed 
 way, for the tobacco to which he always resorted at 
 moments of nervous fatigue. His good wife Margaret 
 never sent him out without mended clothes, spotless 
 linen, and a paper of tobacco in his pocket. He sat 
 chewing it awhile in silence ; David's remarks to him 
 met with only incoherent answers, and at last the 
 schoolmaster got up and with the help of his stick 
 tottered off along the path by wliich he had come. 
 David's eyes followed the bent figure uneasily ; nor 
 did he turn homeward till it disappeared over the 
 brow.
 
 32 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Anyone opening the door of Needliam Farm kitchen 
 that night at eight would have found the inmates at 
 supper — a meagre supper, which should, according to 
 the rule of the house, have been eaten in complete 
 silence. Hannah Grieve, the children's aunt, and 
 mistress of the farm, thought it an offence to talk at 
 meals. She had not been so brought up. 
 
 But Louie this evening was in a state of nerves. 
 The afternoon had seen one of those periodical struggles 
 between her and Hannah, which did so much to keep 
 life at Needham Farm from stagnating into anything 
 like comfort. The two combatants, however, must have 
 taken a certain joy in them, since they recurred with so 
 much regularity. Hannah had won, of coarse, as the 
 grim self-importance of her bearing amply showed. 
 Louie had been forced to patch the house-linen as usual, 
 mainly by the temporary confiscation of her Sunday hat, 
 the one piece of decent clothing she possessed, and to 
 which she clung with a feverish attachment — generally, 
 indeed, sleeping with it beside her pillow. But, though 
 she was beaten, she was still seething with rebellion.
 
 CHILDHOOD 33 
 
 Her eyes were red, but her shaggy head was thrown 
 back defiantly, and there was hysterical battle in the 
 expression of her sharply tinted nose and chin. 
 
 ' Mind yorsel,' cried Hannah angrily, as the child 
 put down her plate of porridge with a bang which 
 made the housewife tremble for her crockery. 
 
 ' What's t' matter wi yo, Louie ? ' said Uncle Reuben, 
 looking at her with some discomfort. He had just 
 finished the delivery of a long grace, into which he had 
 thrown much unction, and Louie's manners made but an 
 ill-fitting Amen. 
 
 'It's nasty!' said the child jDassionately. 'It's 
 alius porridge — porridge — porridge — porridge — an I 
 hate it — an it's bitter — an it's a shame ! I wish I wor 
 at Wigson's— 'at I do ! ' 
 
 Davy glanced up at his sister under his eyebrows. 
 Hannah scanned her niece all over with a slow, 
 observant scrutiny, as though she were a dangerous 
 animal that must be watched. Otherwise Louie might 
 have spoken to the wall for all the effect she produced. 
 Reuben, however, was more vulnerable. 
 
 ' What d' yo want to be at Wigson's for ? ' he asked. 
 ' Yo should be content wi your state o' life, Louie. 
 It's a sin to be discontented — I've tellt yo so many 
 times.' 
 
 ' They've got scones and rhubarb jam for tea ! ' 
 cried the child, tumbling the news out as though she 
 were bursting with it. 'Mrs. Wigson, she's alius 
 makin em nice things. She's kind, she is — she's nice 
 
 VOL. I. I)
 
 34 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 — slie wouldn't make em eat stuff like this — ske'd give 
 it to the pigs — 'at she would ! ' 
 
 And all the time it was pitiful to see how the child 
 was gobbling up her unpalatable food, evidently from 
 the instinctive fear, nasty as it was, that it would be 
 taken from her as a punishment for her behaviour. 
 
 'Now, Louie, yo're a silly gell,' began Reuben, 
 expostulating ; but Hannah interposed. 
 
 ' I wudn't advise yo, Reuben Grieve, to go wastin 
 your breath on sich a minx. If I were yo, I'd keep it 
 fur my awn eatin.' 
 
 And she calmly put another slice of cold bacon on 
 his plate, as though reminding him of his proper 
 business. Reuben fell silent and munched his bacon, 
 though he could not forbear studying his niece every 
 now and then uncomfortably. He was a tall, large- 
 boned man, with weakish eyes, sandy whiskers and 
 beard, grown in a fringe round his long face, and 
 a generally clumsy and disjointed air. The tremulous, 
 uncertain movements of his hand as he stretched it out 
 for one article of food after another seemed to express 
 the man's character. 
 
 Louie went on gulping down her porridge. Her 
 plate was just empty when Hannah caught a movement 
 of Reuben's fork. He was in the act of furtively trans- 
 ferring to Louie a portion of bacon. But he could not 
 restrain himself from looking at Hannah as he held out 
 the morsel. Hannah's answering look was too much 
 for him. The bacon went into his mouth.
 
 CHILDHOOD 
 
 35 
 
 Supper over, Louie went out to sit on the steps, and 
 Hannah contemptuously forbore to make her come in 
 and help clear away. Out in the air, the child slowly 
 quieted down. It was a clear, frosty April night, pro- 
 mising a full moon. The fresh, nipping air blew on 
 the girl's heated temples and swollen eyes. Against 
 her will almost, her spirits came back. She swept 
 Aunt Hannah out of her mind, and began to plan 
 something which consoled her. When would they have 
 their stupid prayers and let her get upstairs ? 
 
 David meanwhile hung about the kitchen. He 
 would have liked to ask Uncle Reuben about the pool 
 and 'Lias's story, but Hannah was bustling about, and 
 he never mentioned 'Lias in her hearing. To do so 
 would have been like handing over something weak, 
 for which he had a tenderness, to be worried. 
 
 But he rummaged out an old paper-covered guide 
 to the Peak, which he remembered to have been left at 
 the farm one summer's day by a passing tourist, who 
 paid Hannah handsomely for some bread and cheese. 
 Turning to the part which concerned CJough End, 
 Hayfield, and the Scout, he found : — 
 
 ' In speaking of the Mermaiden's Pool, it may be 
 remarked that the natives of several little hamlets 
 surrounding Kinder Scout have long had a tradition 
 that there is a beautiful woman — an English Hamadryad 
 — lives in the side of the Scout ; that she comes to 
 bathe every day in the Mermaid's Well, and that 
 
 p 2
 
 36 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 the man who has the good luck to behold her bathing 
 will become immortal and never die.' 
 
 David shut the book and fell pondering, like many 
 another wiser mortal before him, on the discrepancies 
 of evidence. What w^as a Hamadryad ? and why no 
 mention of Easter Eve ? and what had it all to do with 
 the witch and Parson Maine and 'Lias's excitement ? 
 
 Meanwhile, the thump made by the big family 
 Bible as Hannah deposited it on the table warned both 
 him and the truant outside that prayer-time had come. 
 Louie came in noisily when she was called, and both 
 children lounged unwillingly into their appointed seats. 
 
 Nothing but the impatience and indifference of 
 childhood, however, could have grudged Reuben Grieve 
 the half-hour which followed. During that one half- 
 hour in the day, the mild, effaced man, whose absent- 
 minded ways and complete lack of business faculty were 
 the perpetual torment of his wife, was master of his 
 house. While he was rolling out the psalm, expound- 
 ing the chapter, or ' wrestling ' in prayer, he w^as a 
 personality and an influence even for the wife who, in 
 spite of a dumb congruity of habit, regarded him 
 generally as incompetent and in the way. Reuben's 
 religious sense was strong and deep, but some very 
 natural and pathetically human instincts entered also 
 into his constant pleasure in this daily function. 
 Hannah, with her strong and harsh features settled 
 into repose, with her large hands, reddened by the day's 
 work, lying idle in her lap, sat opposite to him in
 
 CHILDHOOD 37 
 
 silence ; for once she listened, to him, whereas all day 
 he had listened to her ; and the moment made a daily 
 oasis in the life of a man who, in his own dull, peasant 
 way, knew that he was a failure, and knew also that no 
 one was so well aware of it as his wife. 
 
 With David and Louie the absorbing interest was 
 generally to see whether the prayer would be over before 
 the eight-day clock struck nine, or whether the loud 
 whirr which preceded that event would be suddenly 
 and deafeningly let loose upon Uncle Reuben in the 
 middle of his peroration, as sometimes happened when 
 the speaker forgot himself. To-night that catastrophe 
 was just avoided by a somewhat obvious hurry through 
 the Lord's Prayer. When they rose from their knees 
 Hannah put away the Bible, the boy and girl raced 
 each other upstairs, and the elders were left alone. 
 
 An hour passed away. Reuben was dozing peacefully 
 in the chimney-corner ; Aunt Hannah had just finished 
 putting a patch on a pair of Reuben's trousei's, w^as fold- 
 ing up her work and preparing to rouse her slumbering 
 companion, when a sound overhead caught her ear. 
 
 ' What's that chilt at now ? ' she exclaimed angrily, 
 getting up and listening. ' She'd owt ta been in bed 
 long ago. Soomthin mischeevous, I'll be bound.' 
 And lighting a dip beside her, she went upstairs with 
 a treacherously quiet step. There was a sound of an 
 opening door, and then Reuben downstairs was startled 
 out of his snooze by a sudden gamut of angry cries, a 
 scurrying of feet, and Hannah scolding loudly —
 
 38 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 ' Coom downstairs wi yo ! — coom down an show 
 your uncle what a figure o' foon yo'n been makkin 
 o' 3' orsel ! I'st teach yo to burn three candles down 
 awbut to nothink at yo may bedizen yorsel in this 
 way. Coom along wi yo.' 
 
 There was a scufile on the stairs, and then Hannah 
 burst open the door, dragging in an extraordinary 
 figure indeed. Struggling and crying in her aunt's 
 grip, was Louie. White trailing folds swept behind 
 her ; a white garment underneath, apparently her 
 nightgown, was festooned with an old red-and-blue 
 striped sash of some foreign make. Round her neck 
 hung a necklace of that gold filigree work which 
 spreads from Genoa all along the Riviera ; her mag- 
 nificent hair hung in masses over her shoulders, 
 crowned by the primroses of the morning, which had 
 been hurriedly twisted into a wreath by a bit of red 
 ribbon rummaged out of some drawer of odds-and-ends ; 
 and her thin brown arms and hands appeared under the 
 white cloak — nothing but a sheet — which was being 
 now trodden underfoot in the child's passionate efforts 
 to get away from her aunt. Ten minutes before she 
 had been a happy queen flaunting over her attic floor 
 in a dream of joy before a broken, propped-up looking- 
 glass under the splendid illumination of three dips, 
 long since secreted for purposes of the kind. Now she 
 was a bedraggled, tear-stained Fury, with a fierce 
 humiliation and a boundless hatred glaring out of the
 
 CHILDHOOD 39 
 
 eyes, which in Aunt Hannah's opinion were so big -as 
 to be ' right down oogly.' Poor Louie ! 
 
 Uncle Keuben, startled from his snooze by this 
 apparition, looked at it with a sleepy bewilderment, 
 and fumbled for his spectacles. ' Ay, yo'd better 
 hike at her close,' said Hannah, grimly, giving her 
 niece a violent shake as she spoke ; ' I wor set yo 
 should just see her fur yance at her antics. Yo say 
 soomtimes I'm hard on her. Well, I'd ask ony pusson 
 aloive if they'd put up wi this soart o' thing — dressin 
 up like a bad hizzy that waaks t' streets, wi three 
 candles — three ^ I tell yo, Reuben — flarin away, and 
 the curtains close to, an nothink but the Lord's mussy 
 keepin 'em from catchin. An she peacockin an galli- 
 vantin away enough to mak a cat laugh ! ' 
 
 And Aunt Hannah in her enraged scorn even 
 undertook a grotesque and mincing imitation of the 
 peacocking aforesaid. ^ Let goo ! ' muttered Louie be- 
 tween her shut teeth, and with a wild strength she 
 at last flung off her aunt and sprang for the door. 
 But Hannah was too quick for her and j^ut her back 
 against it. 
 
 ' No — yo'll not goo till your ooncle there's gien yo 
 a word. He shanH say I'm hard on yo for nothink, 
 yo good-for-nowt little powsement — he shall see yo as 
 yo are ! ' 
 
 And with the bitterness of a smouldering grievance, 
 expressed in every feature, Hannah looked peremptorily 
 at her husband. He, poor man, was much perplexed.
 
 40 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 The hour of devotion was passed, and outside it he was 
 not accustomed to be placed in important situations. 
 
 ' Louie — didn't yo know yo wor a bad gell to 
 stay up and burn t' candles, an fret your aunt ? ' he 
 said with a feeble solemnity, his look fixed on the 
 huddled white figure against the mahogany press. 
 
 Louie stood with eyes resolutely cast down, and a 
 forced smile, tremulous, but insolent to a degree, slowly 
 lifting up the corners of her mouth as Uncle Reuben 
 addressed her. The tears were still running ofif her 
 face, but she meant her smile to convey the indomi- 
 table scorn for her tormentors which not even Aunt 
 Hannah could shake out of her. 
 
 Hannah Grieve was exasperated by the child's ex- 
 pression. 
 
 ' Yo little sloot ! ' she said, seizing her by the arm 
 again, and losing her temper for good and all, ' yo've 
 got your mither's bad blude in yo — an it ull coom out, 
 happen what may ! ' 
 
 ' Hannah ! ' exclaimed Reuben, ' Hannah — mind 
 yoursel.' 
 
 ' My mither's dead^ said the child, slowly raising her 
 dark, burning eyes. ' My mither worn't bad ; an if yo 
 say she wor, yo're a heasi for sayin it ! I wish it wor 
 yo wor dead, an my mither wor here instead o' yo ! ' 
 
 To convey the concentrated rage of this speech is 
 impossible. It seemed to Hannah that the child had 
 the evil eye. Even she quailed under it, 
 
 ' Go 'long wi yo,' she said grimly, in a white heat.
 
 CHILDHOOD 41 
 
 while she opened the door — ' an the less yo coom 
 into mij way for t' future, the better.' 
 
 She pushed the child out and shut the door. 
 
 * Yo are hard on her, Hannah ! ' exclaimed Reuben, 
 in his perplexity — pricked, too, as usual in his con- 
 science. 
 
 The repetition of this parrot-cry, as it seemed to her, 
 maddened his wife. 
 
 ' She's a wanton's brat,' she said violently ; ' an she's 
 got t' wanton's blood.' 
 
 Reuben was silent. He was afraid of his wife in 
 these moods. Hannah began, with trembling hands, to 
 pick up the contents of her work-basket, which had 
 been overturned in the scuffle. 
 
 Meanwhile Louie rushed upstairs, stumbling over 
 and tearing her finery, the convulsive sobs beginning 
 again as soon as the tension of her aunt's hated presence 
 was removed. 
 
 At the top she ran against something in the dark. 
 It was David, who had been hanging over the stairs, 
 listening. But she flung past him. 
 
 ' What's t' matter, Louie ? ' he asked in a loud 
 whisper through the door she shut in his face ; ' what's 
 th' owd crosspatch been slangin about ? ' 
 
 But he got no answer, and he was afraid of being 
 caught by Aunt Hannah if he forced his way in. So 
 he went back to his own room, and closed, without 
 latching, his door. He had had an inch of dip to go 
 to bed with, and had spent that on reading. His
 
 42 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 book was a battered copy of ' Anson's Voyages,' which 
 also came from 'Lias's store, and he had been straining 
 his eyes over it with enchantment. Then had come 
 the sudden noise upstairs and down, and his candle 
 and his pleasure had gone out together. The heavy 
 footsteps of his uncle and aunt ascending warned him 
 to keep quiet. They turned into their room, and 
 locked their door as their habit was. David noise- 
 lessly opened his window and looked out. 
 
 A clear moonlight reigned outside. He could 
 distinguish the rounded shapes, the occasional move- 
 ments of the sheep in their pen to the right of the 
 farmyard. The trees in the field threw long shadows 
 down the white slope ; to his left was the cart-shed 
 with its black caverns and recesses, and the branches 
 of the apple-trees against the luminous sky. Owls were 
 calling in the woods below ; sometimes a bell round the 
 neck of one of the sheep tinkled a little, and the river 
 made a distant background of sound. 
 
 The boy's heart grew heavy. After the noises in 
 the Grieves' room ceased he listened for something 
 which he knew must be in the air, and caught it — the 
 sound of a child's long, smothered sobs. On most 
 nights they would not have made much impression on 
 him. Louie's ways with her brother were no more 
 engaging than with the rest of the world ; and she was 
 not a creature who invited consolation from anybody. 
 David, too, with his power of escape at any time into 
 a world of books and dreams or simply into the wild
 
 CHILDHOOD 43 
 
 shepherd life of the moors, was often inclined to a vague 
 irritation with Louie's state of perpetual revolt. The 
 food was nasty, their clothes n-ere ugly and scanty, 
 Aunt Hannah was as hard as nails — at the same time 
 Louie was enough to put anybody's back up. What 
 did she get by it ? — that was his feeling ; though, 
 perhaps, he never shaped it. He had never felt much 
 pity for her. She had a way of putting herself out of 
 court, and he was, of course, too young to see her life 
 or his own as a whole. What their relationship might 
 mean to him was still vague — to be decided by the future. 
 Whatever softness there was in the boy was at this 
 moment called out by other people — by old 'Lias and his 
 wife ; by Mr. Ancrum, the lame minister at Clough End ; 
 by the dogs ; hardly ever by Louie. He had grown 
 used, moreover, to her perpetual explosions, and took 
 them generally with a boy's natural callousness. 
 
 But to-night her woes affected him as they had 
 never done before. The sound of her sobbing, as he 
 stood listening, gradually roused in him an unbearable 
 restlessness. An unaccountable dejDression stole upon 
 him — the reaction, perhaps, from a good deal of mental 
 exertion and excitement in the day. A sort of sick dis- 
 taste awoke in him for most of the incidents of existence 
 — for Aunt Hannah, for Uncle Reuben's incomprehen- 
 sible prayers, for the thought of the long Puritanical 
 Sunday just coming. And, in addition, the low vibra- 
 tions of that distant sobbing stirred in him again, by 
 association, certain memories which were like a clutch of
 
 44 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 physical pain, and which the healthy young animal in- 
 stinctively and passionately avoided whenever it could. 
 But to-night, in the dark and in solitude, there were 
 no distractions, and as the boy put his head down on his 
 arms, rolling it from side to side as though to shake 
 them off, the same old images pursued him — the lodg- 
 ing-house room, and the curtainless iron bed in which 
 he slept with his father • reminiscences of some long, 
 inexplicable anguish through which that father had 
 passed ; then of his death, and his own lonely crying. 
 He seemed still to feel the strange sheets in that bed 
 upstairs, where a compassionate fellow-lodger bad put 
 him the night after his father died ; he sat up again 
 bewildered in the cold dawn, filled with a home-sickness 
 too benumbing for words. He resented these memories, 
 tried to banish them ; but the nature on which they 
 were impressed was deep and rich, and, once shaken, 
 vibrated long. The boy trembled through and through. 
 The more he was ordinarily shed abroad, diffused in the 
 life of sensation and boundless mental curiosity, the 
 blacker were these rare moments of self-consciousness, 
 when all the world seemed pain, an iron vice which 
 pinched and tortured him. 
 
 At last he went to his door, pulled it gently open, 
 and with bare feet went across to Louie's room, which 
 he entered with infinite caution. The moonlight was 
 streaming in on the poor gauds, which lay wildly scat- 
 tered over the floor. David looked at them with 
 amazement. Amongst them he saw something glitter-
 
 CHILDHOOD 45 
 
 ing. He picked it up, saw it was a gold necklace 
 which had been his mother's, and carefully put it on 
 the little toilet table. 
 
 Then he walked on to the bed. Louie was lying 
 with her face turned away from him. A certain pause 
 in the sobbing as he came near told him that she knew 
 he was there. But it began again directly, being 
 indeed a physical relief which the child could not deny 
 herself He stood beside her awkwardly. He could 
 think of nothing to say. But timidly he stretched out 
 his hand and laid the back of it against her wet cheek. 
 He half expected she would shake it off, but she did 
 not. It made him feel less lonely that she let it stay ; 
 the impulse to comfort had somehow brought himself 
 comfort. He stood there, feeling very cold, thinking 
 a whirlwind of thoughts about old 'Lias, about the 
 sheep, about Titus and Jerusalem, and about Louie's 
 extraordinary proceedings — till suddenly it struck him 
 that Louie was not crying any more. He bent over 
 her. The sobs had changed into the long breaths of 
 sleep, and, gently drawing away his hand, he crept off 
 to bed.
 
 46 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 It was Sunday afternoon, still cold, nipping, and sunny. 
 Reuben Grieve sat at the door of tlie farmhouse, his 
 pipe in his hand, a ' good book ' on his knee. Beyond 
 the wall which bounded the farmyard he could hear 
 occasional voices. The children were sitting there, he 
 supposed. It gave him a sensation of pleasure once 
 to hear a shrill laugh, which he knew was Louie's. For 
 all this morning, through the long services in the 
 ' Christian Brethren ' chapel at Clough End, and 
 on the walk home, he had been once more pricked 
 in his conscience. Hannah and Louie were not on 
 speaking terms. At meals the aunt assigned the child 
 her coarse food without a word, and on the way to 
 chapel and back there had been a stony silence between 
 them. It was evident, even to his dull mind, that the 
 girl was white and thin, and that between her wild 
 temper and mischief and the mirth of other children 
 there was a great difference. Moreover, certain pas- 
 sages in the chapel prayers that morning had come 
 home sharply to a mind whereof th^ only definite 
 gift was a true religious sensitiveness. The text of the 
 sermon especially — ' Whoso loveth not his brother,
 
 CHILDHOOD 47 
 
 whom he hath seen, how shall he love God, whom he 
 hath not seen ? ' — vibrated like an accusing voice 
 within him. As he sat in the doorway, with the sun 
 stealing in upon him, the clock ticking loudly at his 
 back, and the hens scratching round the steps, he 
 began to think with much discomfort about his dead 
 brother and his brother's children. 
 
 As to his memories of the past, they may perhaps 
 be transformed here into a short family history, with 
 some details added which had no place in Reuben's 
 mind. Twenty years before this present date Needham 
 — once Needham's — Farm had been held by Reuben's 
 father, a certain James Grieve. He had originally been 
 a kind of farm-labourer on the Berwickshire border, 
 who, driven southwards in search of work by the stress 
 of the bad years which followed the great war, had 
 wandered on, taking a job of work here and another 
 there, and tramping many a score of weary miles 
 between, till at last in this remote Derbyshire valley 
 he had found a final anchorage. Needham Farm was 
 then occupied by a young couple of the name of 
 Pierson, beginning life under fairly prosperous circum- 
 stances. James Grieve took service with them, and 
 they valued his strong sinews and stern Calvinistic 
 probity as they deserved. But he had hardly been two 
 years on the farm when his young employer, dozing one 
 winter evening on the shafts of his cart coming back 
 from Glossop market, fell off, was run over, and 
 killed. The widow, a young thing, nearly lost her
 
 48 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 senses with grief, and James, a man of dour exterior 
 and few words, set himself to keep things going on 
 the farm till she was able to look life in the face again. 
 Her sister came to be with her, and there was a child 
 born, which died. She was left better provided for 
 than most women of her class, and she had expectations 
 from her parents. After the child's death, when the 
 widow began to go about again, and James still man- 
 aged all the work of the farm, the neighbours naturally 
 fell talking. James took no notice, and he was not a 
 man to meddle with, either in a public-house or else- 
 where. But presently a crop of suitors for the widow 
 began to appear, and it became necessary also to settle 
 the destiny of the farm. No one outside ever knew 
 how it came about, for Jenny Pierson, who was a soft, 
 prettyish creature, had given no particular sign; but 
 one Sunday morning the banns of James Grieve, 
 bachelor, and Jenny Pierson, widow, were suddenly 
 given out in the Presbyterian chapel at Clough End, 
 to the mingled astonishment and disgust of the neigh- 
 bourhood. 
 
 Years passed away. James held his own for a time 
 with any farmer of the neighbourhood. But, by the 
 irony of fate, the prosperity which his industry and 
 tenacity deserved was filched from him little by little 
 by the ill-health of his wife. She bore him two sons, 
 Reuben and Alexander, and then she sank into a 
 hopeless, fretful invalid, tormented by the internal 
 ailment of which she ultimately died. But the small
 
 CHILDHOOD 49 
 
 farmer who employs little or no labour is lost without 
 an active wife. If he has to pay for the milking of his 
 cows, the making of his butter, the cooking of his food, 
 and the nursing of his children, his little margin of 
 profit is soon eaten away ; and with the disappearance 
 of this margin, existence becomes a blind struggle. 
 Even James Grieve, the man of iron will and indomi- 
 table industry, was beaten at last in the unequal contest. 
 The life at the farm became bitter and tragic. Jenny 
 grew more helpless and more peevish year by year; 
 James was not exactly unkind to her, but he could not 
 but revenge upon her in some degree that ruin of his 
 silent ambitions w^hich her sickliness had brought upon 
 him. 
 
 The two sons grew up in the most depressing 
 atmosphere conceivable. Reuben, who was to have 
 the farm, developed a shy and hopeless taciturnity 
 under the pressure of the family chagrin and privations, 
 and found his only relief in the emotions and excite- 
 ments of Methodism. Sandy seemed at first more 
 fortunate. An opening was found for him at Shefiield, 
 where he was apprenticed to a rope-maker, a cousin of 
 his mother's. This man died before Sandy was more 
 than halfway through his time, and the youth went 
 through a period of hardship and hand-to-mouth living 
 which ended at last in the usual tramp to London. 
 Here, after a period of semi-starvation, he found it 
 impossible to get work at his own trade, and finally 
 drifted into carpentering and cabinet-making. The 
 
 VOL. 1. K
 
 50 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 beginnings of this new line of life were incredibly diffi- 
 cult, owing to the jealousy of his fellow-workmen, who 
 had properly served their time to the trade, and did 
 not see why an interloper from another trade, without 
 qualifications, should be allowed to take the bread out 
 of their mouths. One of Sandy's first successes was 
 in what was called a ' shop-meeting,' a gathering of 
 all the employes of the firm he worked for, before 
 whom the North-countryman pleaded to be allowed to 
 earn his bread. The tall, finely grown, famished- 
 looking lad spoke with a natural eloquence, and here 
 and there with a Biblical force of phrase — the 
 inheritance of his Scotch blood and training — which 
 astonished and melted most of his hearers. He was 
 afterwards let alone, and even taught by the men about 
 him, in return for ' drinks,' which swallowed up some- 
 times as much as a third of his wages. 
 
 After two or three years he was fully master of his 
 trade, an admirable workman, and a keen politician to 
 boot. All this time he had spent his evenings in self- 
 education, buying books with every spare pennj^, and 
 turning specially to science and mathematics. His 
 abilities presently drew the attention of the heads of 
 the Shoreditch firm for which he worked, and when the 
 post of a foreman in a West-end shop, in which they 
 were largely interested, fell vacant, it was their influence 
 which put Sandy Grieve into the well-paid and coveted 
 post. He could hardly believe his own good fortune. 
 The letter in which he announced it to his father
 
 CHILDHOOD 51 
 
 reached the farm just as the last phase of his mother's 
 long martyrdom was developing. The pair, already 
 old — James with work and anxiety, his wife with sick- 
 ness — read it together. They shut it up without a 
 word. Its tone of jubilant hope seemed to have nothing 
 to do with them, or seemed rather to make their own 
 narrowing prospects look more narrow, and the ap- 
 proach of the King of Terrors more black and relent- 
 less, than before. Jenny lay back on her poor bed 
 with the tears of a dumb self-pity running down her 
 cheeks, and James's only answer to it was conveyed in 
 a brief summons to Sandy to come and see his mother 
 before the end. The prosperous son, broadened out of 
 knowledge almost by good feeding and good clothes, 
 arrived. He brought money, which was accepted with- 
 out much thanks ; but his mother treated him almost 
 as a stranger, and the dour James, while not unwilling 
 to draw out his account of himself, would look him up 
 and down from under his bushy grey eyebrows, and 
 often interpose with some sarcasm on his ' foine ' ways 
 of speaking, or his ' gentleman's cloos.' Sandy was ill 
 at ease. He was really anxious to help, and his heart 
 was touched by his mother's state ; but perhaps there 
 was a strain of self-importance in his manner, a half- 
 conscious inclination to thank God that his life was not 
 to be as theirs, which came out in spite of him, and 
 dug a gulf between him and them. Only his brother 
 Reuben, dull, pious, affectionate Reuben, took to him, 
 and showed that patient and wondering admiration of 
 
 E 2 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOfS
 
 52 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 tke younger's cleverness, which probably Sandy had 
 reckoned on as his right from his parents also. 
 
 On the last evening of his stay — he had luckily been 
 able to make his coming coincide with an Easter three 
 days' holiday — he was sitting beside his mother in the 
 dusk, thinking, with a relief which every now and then 
 roused in him a pang of shame, that in fourteen or 
 fifteen more hours he should be back in London, in the 
 world which made much of him and knew what a smart 
 fellow he was, when his mother opened her eyes — so 
 wide and blue they looked in her pinched, death- 
 stricken face — and looked at him full. 
 
 ' Sandy ! ' 
 
 ' Yes, mother ! ' he said, startled — for he had been 
 sunk in his own thoughts — and laying his hand on 
 hers. 
 
 ' You should get a wife, Sandy.' 
 
 ' Well, some day, mother, I suppose I shall,' he said, 
 with a change of expression which the twilight con- 
 cealed. 
 
 She was silent a minute, then she began again, slow 
 and feebly, but with a strange clearness of articulation. 
 
 ' If she's sick, Sandy, doant grudge it her. Women 
 'ud die fasster iv they could.' 
 
 The whole story of the slow consuming bitterness of 
 years spoke through those fixed and filmy eyes. Her 
 son gave a sudden irrepressible sob. There was a faint 
 lightening in the little wrinkled face, and the lips made 
 a movement. He kissed her, and in that last moment
 
 CHILDHOOD 53 
 
 of consciousness the mother almost forgave him his 
 good clothes and his superior airs. 
 
 Poor Sandy ! Looking to his after story, it seems 
 strange that any one should ever have felt him un- 
 bearably prosperous. About six months after his 
 mother's death he married a milliner's assistant, whom 
 he met first in the pit of a theatre, and whom he was 
 already courting when his mother gave him the advice 
 recorded. She was French, from the neighbourhood 
 of Aries, and of course a Catholic. She had come 
 to London originally as lady's-maid to a Russian 
 family settled at Nice. Shortly after their arrival, 
 her master shot his young wife for a supposed in- 
 trigue, and then put an end to himself Naturally 
 the whole establishment was scattered, and the pretty 
 Louise vSuveret found herself alone, with a few pounds, 
 in London. Thanks to the kind offices of the book- 
 keeper in the hotel where they had been staying, 
 she had been introduced to a milliner of repute in 
 the Bond Street region, and the results of a trial 
 given her, in which her natural Frenchwoman's gift 
 and her acquired skill came out triumphant, led to her 
 being permanently engaged. Thenceforward her good 
 spirits — which had been temporarily depressed, not so 
 much by her mistress's tragic ending as by her own 
 unexpected discomfort — reappeared in all their native 
 exuberance, and she proceeded to enjoy London. She 
 defended herself first against the friendly book-keeper, 
 who became troublesome, and had to be treated with
 
 54 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 the most decided ingratitude. Then she gradually built 
 herself up a store of clothes of the utmost elegance, 
 which were the hopeless envy of the other girls em- 
 ployed at Madame Catherine's. And, finally, she looked 
 about for serviceable acquaintances. 
 
 One night, in the pit ot Drury Lane Theatre, 
 while ' The Lady of Lyons ' was going on, Sandy 
 Grieve found himself next to a dazzling creature, 
 with fine black eyes, the smooth olive skin of the 
 South, white teeth, and small dimpled hands, hardly 
 spoilt at all by her trade. She had with her a plain 
 girl-companion, and her manner, though conscious 
 and provocative, had that haughtiness, that implied 
 readiness to take offence, which is the griseUe's substi- 
 tute for breeding. She was, however, affable to Sandy, 
 whose broad shoulders and handsome, well-to-do air 
 attracted her attention. She allowed him to get her 
 a programme, to beguile her into conversation, and, 
 finally, to offer her a cup of coffee. Afterwards he 
 escorted the two to the door of their lodging, in one of 
 the streets off Theobald's Road, and walked home in a 
 state of excitement which astonished him. 
 
 This happened immediately before his visit to the 
 farm and his mother's death. During the six months 
 after that event Sandy knew the 'joy of eventful living.' 
 He was establishing his own business position, and 
 he was courting Louise Suveret with alternations of 
 despair and flattered passion, which stirred the now burly, 
 full-blooded iNorth-country man to his depths. She Jet
 
 CHILDHOOD 55 
 
 him escort her to her work in the morning and take her 
 home in the evening, and she allowed him to give her 
 as many presents of gloves, ribbons, bonbons — for which 
 last she had a childish passion — and the like, as he 
 pleased. But when he pressed her to marry him she 
 generally laughed at him. She was, in reality, ob- 
 serving her world, calculating her chances, and she had 
 several other strings to her bow, as Sandy shrewdly 
 suspected, though she never allowed his jealousy any 
 information to feed upon. It was simply owing to the 
 failure of the most promising of these other strings — a 
 failure which roused in Louise one of those white heats 
 of passion which made the chief flaw in her organisation, 
 viewed as a pleasure-procuring machine — that Sandy 
 found his opportunity. In a moment of mortal chagrin 
 and outraged vanity she consented to marry him, and 
 three weeks afterwards he was the blissful owner of 
 the black eyes, the small hands, the quick tongue, and 
 the seductive chi.ffons he had so long admired more or 
 less at a distance. 
 
 Their marriage lasted six years. At first Lonise 
 found some pleasure in arranging the little house Sandy 
 had taken for her in a new suburb, and in making, 
 wearing, and altering the additional gowns which their 
 joint earnings — for she still worked intermittently at 
 her trade — allowed her to enjoy. After the first infatua- 
 tion was a little cooled, Sandy discovered in her a 
 paganism so unblushing that his own Scotch aud Puritan 
 instincts reacted in a sort of superstitious fear. It
 
 56 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 seemed impossible that God Almighty should long allow 
 Himself to be flouted as Louise flouted Him. He found 
 also that the sense of truth was almost non-existent in 
 her, and her vanity, her greed of dress and admiration, 
 was so consuming, so frenzied, that his only hope of a 
 peaceful life — as he quickly realised — lay in ministering 
 to it. Her will soon got the upper hand, and he sank 
 into the patient servant of her pleasures, snatching 
 feverishly at all she gave him in return with the in- 
 stinct of a man who, having sold his soul, is determined 
 at least to get the last farthing he can of the price. 
 
 They had two children in four years — David Suveret 
 and Louise Stephanie. Louise resented the advent of 
 the second so intensely that poor Sandy became con- 
 scious, before the child appeared, of a fatal and appalling 
 change in her relation to him. She had been proud of 
 her first-born — an unusually handsome and precocious 
 child — and had taken pleasure in dressing it and parading 
 it before the eyes of the other mothers in their terrace, 
 all of whom she passionately despised. But Louie 
 nearly died of neglect, and the two years that followed 
 her birth were black indeed for Sandy. His wife, he 
 knew, had begun to hate him ; in business his energies 
 failed him, and his employers cooled towards him as he 
 grew visibly less pushing and inventive. The little house- 
 hold got deeper and deeper into debt, and towards the 
 end of the time Louise would sometimes spend the whole 
 day away from home without a word of explanation. So 
 great was his nervous terror — strong, broad fellow that
 
 CHILDHOOD 57 
 
 he was — of that pent-up fury in her, which a touch 
 might have unloosed, that he never questioned her. At 
 last the inevitable end came. He got home one summer 
 evening to find the house empty and ransacked, the 
 children — little things of five and two — sitting crying 
 in the desolate kitchen, and a crowd of loud-voiced, 
 indignant neighbours round the door. To look for her 
 would have been absurd. Louise was much too clever 
 to disappear and leave traces behind. Besides, he had 
 no wish to find her. The hereditary self in him accepted 
 his disaster as representing the natural retribution 
 which the canny Divine vengeance keeps in store for 
 those who take to themselves wives of the daughters of 
 Heth. And there was the sense, too, of emerging from 
 something unclean, of recovering his manhood. 
 
 He took his two children and went to lodgings in a 
 decent street near the Gray's Inn Road. There for a 
 year things went fairly well with him. His boy and 
 girl, whom he paid a neighbour to look after during the 
 day, made something to come home to. As he helped 
 the boy, who was already at school, with his lesson for 
 the next day, or fed Louie, perched on his knee, with 
 the bits from his plate demanded by her covetous eyes 
 and open mouth, he got back, little by little, his self- 
 respect. He returned, too, in the evenings to some of 
 his old pursuits, joined a Radical club near, and some 
 science lectures. He was aged and much more silent 
 than of yore, but not unhappy ; his employers, too, 
 feeling that their man had somehow recovered himself.
 
 58 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 and hearing something of his history, were sorry for 
 him, and showed it. 
 
 Then one autumn evening a constable knocked at 
 his door, and, coming in upon the astonished group of 
 father and children, produced from his pocket a soaked 
 and tattered letter, and showing Sandy the address, 
 asked if it was for him. Sandy, on seeing it, stood up, 
 put down Louie, who, half undressed, had been having 
 a ride on his knee, and asked his visitor to come out on 
 to the landing. There he read the letter under the 
 gas-lamp, and put it deliberately into his pocket. 
 
 ' Where is she ? ' he asked. 
 
 ^ In Lambeth mortuary,' said the man briefly — 
 ^ picked up two hours ago. Nothing else found on her 
 but this.' 
 
 Half an hour afterwards Sandy stood by a slab in 
 the mortuary, and, drawing back a sheet which covered 
 the burden on it, stood face to face with his dead wife. 
 The black brows were drawn, the small hands clenched. 
 What struck Sandy with peculiar horror was that one 
 delicate wrist was broken, having probably struck some- 
 thing in falling. She — who in life had rebelled so hotly 
 against the least shadow of physical pain ! Thanks to 
 the bandage which had been passed round it, the face 
 was not much altered. She could not have been long 
 in the water. Probably about the time when he was 
 
 walking home from work, she He felt himself 
 
 suffocating — the bare whitewashed walls grew dim and 
 wavering.
 
 CHILDHOOD 59 
 
 The letter found upon her was the strangest appeal 
 to his pity. Her seducer had apparently left her ; she 
 was in dire straits, and there was, it seemed, no one but 
 Sandy in all London on whose compassion she could 
 throw herself. She asked him, callously, for money 
 to take her back to some Nice relations. They need 
 only know what she chose to tell them, as she calmly 
 pointed out, and, once in Nice, she could make a living. 
 She would like to see her children, she said, before she 
 left, but she supposed he would have to settle that. 
 How had she got his address ? From his place of 
 business probably, in some roundabout way. 
 
 Then what had happened ? Had she been seized 
 with a sudden persuasion that he would not answer, 
 that it was all useless trouble ; and in one of those 
 accesses of blind rage by which her clear, sharp brain- 
 life was at all times apt to be disturbed, had she rushed 
 out to end it all at once and for ever ? It made him 
 forgive her that she coidd have destroyed herself — could 
 have faced that awful plunge — that icy water — that 
 death-struggle for breath. He gauged the misery she 
 must have gone through by what he knew of her sen- 
 suous love for comfort, for hien-eire. He saw her again 
 as she had been that night at the theatre when they 
 first met, — the little crisp black curls on the temples, 
 the dazzling eyes, the artificial pearls round the neck, 
 the slight traces of powder and rouge on brow and 
 cheek, which made her all the more attractive and 
 tempting to his man's eye — the pretty foot, which he
 
 6o THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 jBrst noticed as she stepped from tlie threshold of the 
 theatre into the street. Nature had made all that, to 
 bring her work to this grim bed at last ! 
 
 He himself lived eighteen months afterwards. His 
 acquaintances never dreamt of connecting his death 
 with his wife's, and the connection, if it existed, would 
 have been difficult to trace. Still, if little David could 
 have put his experiences at this time into words, they 
 might have thrown some light on an event which was 
 certainly a surprise to the small world which took an 
 interest in Sandy Grieve. 
 
 There was a certain sound which remained all 
 through his life firmly fixed in David's memory, and 
 which he never thought of without a sense of desolation, 
 a shiver of sick dismay, such as belonged to no other 
 association whatever. It was the sound of a long sigh, 
 brought up, as it seemed, from the very depths of being, 
 and often, often repeated. The thought of it brought 
 with it a vision of a small bare room at night, with 
 two iron bedsteads, one for Louie, one for himself and 
 his father ; a bit of smouldering fire in a tiny grate, 
 and beside it a man's figure bowed over the warmth, 
 thrown out dark against the distempered wall, and 
 sitting on there hour after hour ; of a child, wakened 
 intermittently by the light, and tormented by the 
 recurrent sound, till it had once more burrowed into the 
 bed-clothes deep enough to shut out everything but 
 sleep. All these memories belonged to the time imme- 
 diately following on Louise's suicide. Probably, during
 
 CHILDHOOD 6i 
 
 the interval between his wife's death and his own, 
 Sandy sujffered severely from the effects of strong 
 nervous shock, coupled with a certain growth of reli- 
 gious melancholy, the conditions for which are rarely 
 wanting in the true Calvinist blood. Owing to the 
 privations and exposure of his early manhood, too, it is 
 possible that he was never in reality the strong man he 
 looked. At any rate, his fight for his life when it came 
 was a singularly weak one. The second winter after 
 Louise's death was bitterly cold ; he was overworked, 
 and often without sleep. One bleak east-wind day 
 struck home. He took to his bed with a chill, which 
 turned to peritonitis ; the system showed no power of 
 resistance, and he died. 
 
 Oil the day but one before he died, when the mortal 
 pain was gone, but death was absolutely certain, he 
 sent post-haste for his brother Reuben. Reuben he 
 believed was married to a decent woman, and to Reuben 
 he meant to commend his children. 
 
 Reuben arrived, looking more bewildered and stupid 
 than ever, pure countryman that he was, in tliis London 
 which he had never seen. Sandy looked at him with a 
 deep inward dissatisfaction. But what could he do ? 
 His marriage had cut him off from his old friends, and 
 since its wreck he had had no energy wherewith to 
 make new ones. 
 
 * I've never seen your wife, Reuben,' he said, when 
 they had talked a while.
 
 62 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 Reuben was silent a minute, apparently collecting 
 his thoughts. 
 
 ' Naw,' he said at last ; ' naw. She sent yo her 
 luve, and she hopes iv it's the Lord's will to tak yo, 
 that it ull foind yo prepared.' 
 
 He said it like a lesson. A sort of nervous tremor 
 and shrinking overspread Sandy's face. He had 
 suffered so much through religion during the last few 
 months, that in this final moment of humanity the 
 soul had taken refuge in numbness — apathy. Let God 
 decide. He could think it out no more ; and in this 
 utter feebleness his terrors of hell — the ineradicable 
 deposit of childhood and inheritance — had passed away. 
 He gathered his forces for the few human and practical 
 things which remained to him to do. 
 
 ' Did she get on comfortable with father ? ' he asked, 
 fixing Eeuben with his eyes, which had the penetration 
 of death. 
 
 Reuben looked discomposed, and cleared his throat 
 once or twice. 
 
 ' Wal, it warn't what yo may call just coomfortable 
 atween 'em. Naw, I'll not say it wor.' 
 
 ' What was wrong ? ' demanded Sandy. 
 
 Reuben fidgeted. 
 
 'Wal,' he said at last, throwing up his head in 
 desperation, ' I spose a woman likes her house to 
 hersel when she's fust married. He wor childish like, 
 an mighty trooblesome times. An she's alius stirrin',
 
 CHILDHOOD 63 
 
 an rootin', is Hannah. Udder foak mus look aloive 
 too.' 
 
 The conflict in Reuben's mind between his innate 
 truthfulness and his desire to excuse his wife was 
 curious to see. Sandy had a vision of his father sitting 
 in his dotage by his own hearth, and ministered to by 
 a daughter-in-law who grudged him his years and his 
 infirmities, as he had grudged his wife all the trouble- 
 some incidents of her long decay. But it only affected 
 him now as it bore upon what was still living in him, 
 the one feeling which still survived amid the wreck 
 made by circumstance and disease. 
 
 ' Will she be kind to iliem ? ' he said sharply, with 
 a motion of the head towards the children, first towards 
 David, who sat drooping on his fathers bed, where 
 for some ten or twelve hours now he had remained 
 glued, refusing to touch either breakfast or dinner, 
 and then towards Louie, who was on the floor by the 
 fire, with her rag dolls, which she was dressing up 
 with smiles and chatter in a strange variety of finery. 
 ' If not, she shan't have 'em. There's time yet.' 
 
 But the grey hue was already on his cheek, his 
 feet were already cold. The nurse in the far corner of 
 the room, looking up as he spoke, gave him mentally 
 ' an hour or two.' 
 
 Reuben flushed and sat bolt upright, his gnarled 
 and wrinkled hands trembling on his knees. 
 
 ' She sliall be kind to em,' he said with energ}-.
 
 64 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 ' Gie em to us, Sandy. Yo wouldna send your childer 
 to strangers ? ' 
 
 The clannish instinct in Sandy responded. Besides, 
 in spite of his last assertion, he knew very well there 
 was nothing else to be done. 
 
 ' There's money,' he said slowly. ' She'll not need 
 to stint them of anything. This is a poor place,' for 
 at the word ' money ' he noticed that Reuben's eyes 
 travelled with an awakening shrewdness over the 
 barely furnished room ; ' but it was the debts first, and 
 then I had to put by for the children. None of the 
 shop-folk or the fellows at the club ever came here. 
 We lived as we liked. There's an insurance, and 
 there's some savings, and there's some commission 
 money owing from the firm, and there's a bit invest- 
 ment Mr. Gurney (naming the head partner) helped 
 me into last year. There's altogether about six 
 hundred pound. You'll get the interest of it for the 
 children ; it'll go into Gurneys', and they'll give 
 five per cent, for it. Mr. Gurney's been very kind. He 
 came here yesterday, and he's got it all. You go to 
 him.' 
 
 He stopped for weakness. Reuben's eyes were 
 round. Six hundred pounds ! Whod have thought 
 it of Sandy ? — after that bad lot of a wife, and he not 
 thirty ! 
 
 ' An what d' yo want Davy to be, Sandy ? ' 
 
 ' You must settle,' said the father, with a long sigh. 
 ' Depends on him — what he turns to. If he wants to
 
 CHILDHOOD 65 
 
 farm, he can learn with you, and put in his money 
 when he sees an opening. For the bit farms in our 
 part there'd be enough. But I'm feeart' (the old 
 Derbyshire word slipped out unawares) ' he'll not stay 
 in the country. He's too sharp, and you mustn't force 
 him. If you see he's not the farming sort, when he's 
 thirteen or fourteen or so, take Mr. Gurney's advice, 
 and bind him to a trade. Mr. Gurney '11 pay the 
 premiums for him and he can haye the balance of the 
 money — for I've left him to manage it all, for liimself 
 and Louie too — when he's fit to set up for himself — 
 You and Hannah '11 deal honest wi 'em ? ' 
 
 The question was unexpected, and as he put it with 
 a startling energy the dying man raised himself on his 
 elbow, and looked sharply at his brother. 
 
 ' D' yo think I'd cheat yo, or your childer, 
 Sandy ? ' cried Heuben, flushing and pricked to the 
 heart. 
 
 Sandy sank back again, his sudden qualm appeased. 
 ' No,' he said, his thoughts returning painfully to his 
 son. ' I'm feeart he'll not stay wi you. He's cleverer 
 than I ever was, and I was the cleverest of us all.' 
 
 The words had in them a whole epic of human 
 fate. Under the prick of them Reuben found a tongue, 
 not now for his wife, but for himself. 
 
 ' It's not cliverness as nil help yo now, Sandy, wi 
 your Maaker ! and yo feeace t' feeace wi 'un ! ' he cried. 
 ' It's nowt but satisfacshun by t' blood o' Jesus ! ' 
 
 Sandy made no answer, unless, indeed, the poor 
 
 VOL. I. Y
 
 66 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 heart within made its last cry of agony to heaven at 
 the words. The sinews of the spiritual as well as the 
 physical man were all spent and useless. 
 
 'Davy,' he called presently. The child, who had 
 been sitting motionless during this talk watching his 
 father, slid along the bed with alacrity, and tucking his 
 little legs and feet well away from Sandy's long frame, 
 put his head down on the pillow. His father turned 
 his eyes to him, and with a solemn, lingering gaze took 
 in the childish face, the thick, tumbled hair, the ex- 
 pression, so piteous, yet so intelligent. Then he put up 
 his own large hand, and took both the boy's into its 
 cold and feeble grasp. His eyelids fell, and the breath- 
 ing changed. The nurse hurriedly rose, lifted up Louie 
 from her toys, and put her on the bed beside him. The 
 child, disturbed in her play and frightened by she knew 
 not what, set up a sudden cry. A tremor seemed to 
 pass through the shut lids at the sound, a slight com- 
 pression of pain appeared in the grey lips. It was 
 Sandy Grieve's last sign of life. 
 
 Reuben Grieve remembered well the letter he had 
 written to his wife, with infinite difficulty, from beside 
 his brother's dead body. He told her that he was 
 bringing the children back with him. The poor bairns 
 had got nobody in the world to look to but their uncle 
 and aunt. And they would not cost Hannah a penny. 
 For Mr. Gurney would pay thirty pounds a year for 
 their keep and bringing up. 
 
 With what care and labour his clumsy fingers had
 
 CHILDHOOD 67 
 
 penned that last sentence so tliat Hannah might read 
 it plain ! 
 
 Afterwards he brought the children home. As he 
 drove his light cart up the rough and lonely road to 
 Needham Farm, Louie cried with the cold and the 
 dark, and Davy, with his hands tucked between his 
 knees, grew ever more and more silent, his restless 
 little head turning perpetually from side to side, as 
 though he were trying to discover something of the 
 strange, new world to which he had been brought, 
 through the gloom of the February evening. 
 
 Then at the sound of wheels outside in the lane, 
 the back door of the farm was opened, and a dark 
 figure stood on the threshold. 
 
 ^Yo're late,' Reuben heard. It was Hannah's 
 piercing voice that spoke. ' Bring 'em into t' back 
 kitchen, an let 'em take their shoes oflf afore they coom 
 ony further.' 
 
 By which Reuben knew that it had been scrubbing- 
 day, and that her flagstones were more in Hannah's mind 
 than the guests he had brought her. He obeyed, and 
 then the barefooted trio entered the front kitchen 
 together. Hannah came forward and looked at the 
 children — at David white and blinking — at the four- 
 year-old Louie, bundled up in an old shawl, which 
 dragged on the ground behind her, and staring wildly 
 round her at the old low-roofed kitchen with the terror 
 of the trapped bird. 
 
 F 2
 
 68 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 ^Hannah, they're varra cold,' said Eeuben — 'ha yo 
 got summat hot ? ' 
 
 ' Theer'U be supper bime-by,' Hannah replied with 
 decision. 'I've naw time scrubbin-days to be foolin 
 about wi things out o' hours. I've nobbut just got 
 straight an cleaned mysel. They can sit down an 
 warm theirsels. I conno say they feature ony of yov 
 belongins, Reuben.' And she went to put Louie on 
 the settle by the fire. But as the tall woman in black 
 approached her, the child hit out madly with her small 
 fists and burst into a loud howl of crying. 
 
 ' Get away, nasty woman ! Nadij woman — ugly 
 woman ! Take me away — I want my daddy, — I want 
 my daddy.' 
 
 And she threw herself kicking on the floor, while, 
 to Hannah's exasperation, a piece of crumbling bun 
 she had been holding tight in her sticky little hand 
 escaped and littered all the new-washed stones. 
 
 ' Tak yor niece oop, Reuben, an mak her behave ' 
 — the mistress of the house commanded angrily. 
 ' She'll want a stick takken to her, soon, 1 can see.' 
 
 Reuben obeyed so far as he could, but Louie's 
 shrieks only ceased when, by the combined efibrts of 
 husband and wife, she had been put to bed, so 
 exhausted with rage, excitement, and the journey, 
 that sleep mercifully took possession of her just after 
 she had performed the crowning feat of knocking the 
 tea and bread and butter Reuben brought her out 
 of her uncle's hand and all over the room.
 
 CHILDHOOD 69 
 
 Meanwhile, David sat perfectly still in a chaii* 
 against the wall, beside the old clock, and stared about 
 him ; at the hams and bunches of dried herbs hanging 
 from the ceiling ; at the chiflfonnier, with its red baize 
 doors under a brass trellis work; at the high wooden 
 settle, the framed funeral cards, and the two or three 
 coloured prints, now brown with age, which Reuben 
 had hung up twenty years before, to celebrate his 
 marriage. Hannah was propitiated by the boy's silence, 
 and as she got supper ready she once or twice noticed 
 his fine black eyes and his curly hair. 
 
 ' Yo can coom an get yor supper,' she said to him, 
 more graciously than she had spoken yet. ' It 's a 
 mussy yo doant goo skrikin like your sister.' 
 
 ' Thank you, ma'am,' said the little fellow, with a 
 townsman's politeness, hardly understanding, however, 
 a word of her north-country dialect — • I'm not hungry. 
 — ^You've got a picture of General Washington there, 
 ma'am ; ' and, raising a small hand trembling with 
 nervousness and fatigue, he pointed to one of the 
 prints opposite. 
 
 * Wal, I niver,' said Hannah, with a stare of 
 astonishment. ' Yo're a quare lot — the two o' yer.' 
 
 One thing more Reuben remembered with some 
 vividness in connection with the children's arrival. 
 When they were both at last asleep — Louie in an 
 unused room at the back, on an old wooden bedstead, 
 which stood solitarv in a wilderness of bare boards ;
 
 70 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE - 
 
 David in a sort of cupboard off the landing, wliicli got 
 most of its light and air from a wooden trellis- work, 
 overlooking the staircase — Hannah said abruptly to her 
 husband, as they two were going to bed, ' When uU 
 Mr. Gurney pay that money ? ' 
 
 ' Twice a year — so his clerk towd me — Christmas an 
 Midsummer. Praps we shan't want to use it aw, 
 Hannah ; praps we might save soom on it for t' 
 childer. Their keep, iv yo feed em on parritch, is 
 nobbut a fleabite, an they'n got a good stock o' cloos, 
 Sandy's nurse towd me.' 
 
 He looked anxiously at Hannah. In his inmost 
 heart there was a passionate wish to do his duty to 
 Sandy's orphans, fighting with a dread of his wife, 
 which was the fruit of long habit and constitutional 
 weakness. 
 
 Hannah faced round upon him. It was Reuben's 
 misfortune that dignity was at all times impossible 
 to him. Now, as he sat in his shirt-sleeves and 
 stocking-feet, flushed with the exertion of pulling off 
 his heavy boots, the light of the tallow candle falling on 
 his weak eyes with their red rims, on his large open 
 mouth with the conspicuous gap in its front teeth, and 
 his stubbly hair, he was more than usually grotesque. 
 ' As slamp an wobbly as an owd corn-boggart,' so his 
 neighbours described him when they wished to be dis- 
 respectful, and the simile fitted very closely with 
 the dishevelled, disjointed appearance which was at all 
 times characteristic of him, Sundays or weekdays. No
 
 CHILDHOOD yt 
 
 one studying the pair, especially at such a moment as 
 this — the malaise of the husband — the wife towering 
 above him, her grey hair hanging loose round her 
 black brows and sallow face instinct with a rugged and 
 indomitable energy — could have doubted in whose 
 hands lay the government of Needham Farm. 
 
 ' I'll thank yo not to talk nonsense, Reuben 
 Grieve,' said his wife sharply. ' D'yo think they're my 
 flesh an blood, thoose childer ? An who'll ha to do for 
 em but me, I should loike to know ? Who'll ha to put 
 up wi their messin an their dirt but me ? Twenty 
 year ha yo an I been married, Reuben, an niver till 
 this neet did I ha to goo down on my knees an sweep 
 oop after scrubbin-day ! Iv I'm to be moidered wi 
 em, I'll be paid for 't. Soa I let yo know — it's little 
 enough.' 
 
 And Hannah took her payment. As he sat in the 
 sun, looking back on the last seven years, with a slow 
 and dreaming mind, Reuben recognised, using his own 
 phrases for the matter, that the children's thirty pounds 
 had been the pivot of Hannah's existence. He was but 
 a small sheep farmer, with very scanty capital. By 
 dint of hard work and painful thrift, th6 childless pair 
 had earned a sufficient living in the past — nay, even put 
 by a bit, if the truth of Hannah's savings-bank deposits 
 were known. But every fluctuation in their small profits 
 tried them sorely — tried Hannah especially,whose temper 
 was of the brooding and grasping order. The certainty of
 
 72 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE ' 
 
 Mr. Gurney's cheques made them very soon the most 
 cheerful facts in the farm life. On two days in the 
 year — the 20th of June and the 20th of December — 
 Reuben might be sure of finding his wife in a good 
 temper, and he had long shrewdly suspected, without 
 inquiring, that Hannah's savings-bank book, since the 
 children came, had been very pleasant reading to her. 
 
 Reuben fidgeted uncomfortably as he thought of 
 those savings. Certainly the children had not cost 
 what was paid for them. He began to be oddly exer- 
 cised this Sunday morning on the subject of the 
 porridge Louie hated so much. Was it his fault or 
 Hannah's if the frugal living which had been the rule 
 for all the remoter farms of the Peak — nay, for the 
 whole north country — in his father's time, and had been 
 made doubly binding, as it were, on the dwellers in 
 Needham Farm by James Grieve's Scotch blood and 
 habits, had survived under their roof, while all about 
 them a more luxurious standard of food and comfort was 
 beginning to obtain among their neighbours ? Where 
 could you find a finer set of men than the Berwickshire 
 hinds, of whom his father came, and who were reared 
 on ' parritch ' from year's end to year's end ? 
 
 And yet, all the same, Reuben's memory was full 
 this morning of disturbing pictures of a little London 
 child, full of town daintiness and accustomed to the 
 spoiling of an indulgent father, crying herself into fits 
 over the new unpalatable food, refusing it day after 
 day, till the sharp, wilful face had grown pale and
 
 CHILDHOOD 73 
 
 pinclied with famine, and caring no more apparently for 
 her aunt's beatings than she did for the clumsy advances 
 by which her uncle would sometimes try to propitiate 
 her. There had been a great deal of beating — when- 
 ever Keuben thought of it he had a superstitious way of 
 putting Sandy out of his mind as much as possible. 
 Many times he had gone far away from the house to 
 avoid the sound of the blows and shrieks he was power- 
 less to stop. 
 
 Well, but what harm had come of it all ? Louie was 
 a strong lass now, if she were a bit thin and overgrown. 
 David was as fine a boy as anyone need wish to see. 
 
 David ? 
 
 Reuben got up from his seat at the farm door, took 
 his pipe out of his pocket, and went to hang over the 
 garden-gate, that he might unravel some very worrying 
 thoughts at a gi'eater distance from Hannah. 
 
 The day before he had been overtaken coming 
 out of Clough End by Mr. Ancrum, the lame minister. 
 He and Grieve liked one another. If there had been 
 intrigues raised against the minister within the ' Chris- 
 tian Brethren ' congregation, Reuben Grieve had taken 
 no part in them. 
 
 After some general conversation, Mr. Ancrum sud- 
 denly said, ' Will you let me have a word with you, 
 Mr. Grieve, about your nephew David — if you'll not 
 think me intruding ? ' 
 
 ' Say on, sir — say on,' said Reuben hastily, but witli 
 an inward shrinking:.
 
 74 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 ' Well, Mr. Grieve, you've got a remarkable boy- 
 there — a curious and remarkable boy. Wbat are you 
 going to do witli him ? ' 
 
 ' Do wi him ? — me, sir ? Wal, I doan't know as 
 I've iver thowt mich about it,' said Reuben, but with an 
 agitation of manner that struck his interrogator. ' He 
 be varra useful to me on t' farm, Mr. Ancrum. Soom 
 toimes i' t' year theer's a lot doin, yo knaw, sir, even on 
 a bit place like ours, and he ha gitten a good schoolin, 
 he ha.' 
 
 The apologetic incoherence of the little speech was 
 curious. Mr. Ancrum did not exactly know how to 
 take his man. 
 
 ' I dare say he's useful. But he's not going to be 
 the ordinary labourer, Mr. Grieve — he's made of quite 
 different stuff, and, if I may say so, it will pay you very 
 well to recognise it in good time. That boy will read 
 books now which hardly any grown man of his class 
 — about here, at any rate — would be able to read. 
 Aye, and talk about them, too, in a way to astonish 
 you!' 
 
 ' Yes, I know at he's oncommon cliver wi his 
 books, is Davy,' Reuben admitted. 
 
 ' Oh ! it's not only that. But he's got an unusual 
 brain and a wonderful memory. And it would be a 
 thousand pities if he were to make nothing of them. 
 You say he's useful, but — excuse me, Mr. Grieve — he 
 seems to me to spend three parts of his time in loafing 
 and desultory reading. He wants more teaching — he
 
 CHILDHOOD 75 
 
 wants steady training. Wliy don't you send him to 
 Manchester,' said the minister boldly, ' and apprentice 
 him ? It costs money, no doubt/ 
 
 And he looked interrogatively at Reuben. Reuben, 
 however, said nothing. They were toiling up the 
 steep road from Clough End to the high farms under the 
 Scout, a road which tried the minister's infirm limb 
 severely ; otherwise he would have taken more notice 
 of his companion's awkward flush and evident dis- 
 composure. 
 
 ' But it would pay you in the long run,' he said, 
 when they stopped to take breath ; ' it would be a 
 capital investment if the boy lives, I promise you 
 that, Mr. Grieve. And he could carry on his education 
 there, too, a bit — what with evening classes and lec- 
 tures, and the different libraries he could get the use 
 of. It's wonderful how all the facilities for working- 
 class education have grown in Manchester during the 
 last few years.' 
 
 ' Aye, sir — I spose they have — I spose they have,' 
 said Reuben, uncomfortably, and then seemed incapable 
 of carrying on the conversation any further. Mr. 
 Ancrum talked, but nothing more was to be got out of 
 the farmer. At last the minister turned back, saying, 
 as he shook hands, ' Well, let me know if I can be of 
 any use. I have a good many friends in Manchester. 
 I tell you that's a boy to be proud of, Mr. Grieve, a boy 
 of promise, if ever there was one. But he wants 
 taking the right way. He's got plenty of mixed stuff"
 
 76 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 in him, bad and good. I should feel it anxious work, 
 the next few years, if he were my boy.' 
 
 Now it was really this talk which was fermenting in 
 Reuben, and which, together with the ' rumpus ' between 
 Hannah and Louie, had led to his singularly disturbed 
 state of conscience this Sunday morning. As he stood, 
 miserably pulling at his pipe, the whole prospect of 
 sloping field, and steep distant moor, gradually vanished 
 from his eyes, and, instead, he saw the same London 
 room which David's memory held so tenaciously — he 
 saw Sandy raising himself from his deathbed with 
 that look of sudden distrust — ' Now, j^ou'll deal honest 
 wi 'em, Reuben ? ' 
 
 Reuben groaned in spirit. ' A boy to be proud of ' 
 indeed. It seemed to him, now that he was perforce 
 made to think about it, that he had never been easy in 
 his mind since Sandy's orphans came to the house. On 
 the one hand, his wife had had her way — how was he to 
 prevent it ? On the other, his religious sense had kept 
 pricking and tormenting — like the gadfly that it was. 
 
 Who, in the name of fortune, was to ask Hannah for 
 money to send the boy to Manchester and apprentice 
 him? And who was going to write to Mr. C4urne3' 
 about it without her leave ? Once upset the system of 
 things on which those two half-yearly cheques depended, 
 how many more of them would be forthcoming ? And 
 how was Hannah going to put up with the loss of 
 them ? It made Reuben shiver to think of it. 
 
 Shouts from the lane behind. Reuben suddenly
 
 CHILDHOOD 77 
 
 raised himself and made for the gate at the comer of 
 the farmyard. He came out upon the children, who 
 had been to Sunday school at Clough End since dinner, 
 and were now in consequence in a state of restless 
 animal spirits. Louie was swinging violently on the 
 gate which barred the path on to the moor. David was 
 shying stones at a rook's nest opposite, the clatter of 
 the outraged colony to which it belonged sounding as 
 music in his ears. 
 
 They stared when they saw Eeuben cross the road, 
 sit down on a stone beside David, and take out his pipe. 
 David ceased throwing, and Louie, crossing her feet and 
 steadying herself as she sat on the topmost bar of 
 the gate by a grip on either side, leant hard on her 
 hands and watched her uncle in silence. When cauofht 
 unawares by their elders, these two had always some- 
 thing of the air of captives defending themselves in an 
 alien country. 
 
 * Wal, Davy, did tha have ^Ir. Ancrum in school ? ' 
 began Reuben, affecting a brisk manner, oddly unlike 
 hira. 
 
 ' Xaw. It wor Brother Winterbotham from Halifax, 
 or soom sich name.' 
 
 ' Wor he edifj'in, Davy ? ' 
 
 ' He wor — he wor — a leather-yed,' said David, with 
 sudden energy, and, taking up a stone again, he flung 
 it at a tree trunk opposite, with a certain viudictiveness 
 as though Brother Winterbotham were sitting there. 
 
 ' Now, yo're not speakin as yo owt, Dav}',' said
 
 78 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 Reuben reprovingly, as he puffed away at his pipe and 
 felt the pleasantness of the spring sunshine which 
 streamed down into the lane through the still bare 
 but budding branches of the sycamores. 
 
 ' He yjor a leather-yed,' David repeated with em- 
 phasis. ' He said it wor Alexander fought t' battle o' 
 Marathon.' 
 
 Reuben was silent for a while. When tests of this 
 kind were going, he could but lie low. However, 
 David's answer, after a bit, suggested an opening to 
 him. 
 
 ' Yo've a rare deal o' book-larnin for a farmin lad, 
 Davy. If yo wor at a trade now, or a mill-hand, or 
 summat o' that soart, yo'd ha noan so mich time for 
 readin as yo ha now.' 
 
 The boy looked at him askance, with his keen black 
 eyes. His uncle puzzled him. 
 
 ' Wal, I'm not a mill-hand, onyways,' he said, shortly, 
 ' an I doan't mean to be.' 
 
 ' Noa, yo're too lazy,' said Louie shrilly, from the 
 top of the gate. ' Theer's heaps o' boys no bigger nor 
 yo, arns their ten shillins a week.' 
 
 ' They're welcome,' said David laconically, throwing 
 another stone at the water to keep his hand in. For 
 some years now the boy had cherished a hatred of the 
 mill-life on which Clough End and the other small 
 towns and villages in the neighbourhood existed. The 
 thought of the long monotonous hours at the mules or 
 the looms was odious to the lad whose joys lay in free
 
 CHILDHOOD 79 
 
 moorland wanderings with the slieep, in endless reading, 
 in talks with 'Lias Dawson. 
 
 ' Wal, now, I'm real glad to heer yo say sich things, 
 Davy, lad,' said Reuben, with a curious flutter of manner. 
 ' I'm real glad. So yo take to the farmin, Davy ? 
 Wal, it's nateral. All yor forbears — all on em least- 
 ways, nobbut yor feyther — got their livin off t' land. 
 It cooms nateral to a Grieve.' 
 
 The boy made no answer — did not commit himself 
 in any way. He went on absently throwing stones. 
 
 'Why doan't he larn a trade?' demanded Louie. 
 ' Theer's Hariy Wigson, he's gone to Manchester to be 
 prenticed. He doan't goo loafin round aw day.' 
 
 Her sharp wits disconcerted Reuben. He looked 
 anxiously at David. The boy coloured furiously, and 
 cast an angry glance at his sister. 
 
 ' Theer's money wanted for prenticin,' he said 
 shortly. 
 
 Reuben felt a stab. Neither of the children knew 
 that they possessed a penny. A blunt word of Hannah's 
 first of all, about ' not gien 'em ony high noshuns o' 
 theirsels,' aided on Reuben's side by the natural 
 secretiveness of the peasant in money affairs, had 
 effectually concealed all knowledge of their own share 
 in the family finances from the orphans. 
 
 He reached out a soil-stained hand, shaking already 
 with incipient age, and laid it on David's sleeve. 
 
 ' Art tha hankerin after a trade, lad ? ' he said 
 hastily, nay, harshly.
 
 8o THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 David looked at his uncle astonished. A hundred 
 thoughts flew through the boy's mind. Then he raised 
 his head and caught sight of the great peak of Kinder 
 Low in the distance, beyond the green swells of meadow- 
 land, — the heathery slopes running up into its rocky 
 breast, — the black patch on the brown, to the left, 
 which marked the site of the Smithy. 
 
 ' No,' he said decidedly. ' No ; I can't say as I am. 
 I like t' farm in well enough.' 
 
 And then, boy-like, hating to be talked to about 
 himself, he shook himself free of his uncle and walked 
 away. Reuben fell to his pipe again with a beaming 
 countenance. 
 
 ' Louie, my gell,' he said. 
 
 ' Yes,' said the child, not moving. 
 
 '- Coom yo heer, Louie.' 
 
 She unwillingly got down and came up to him. 
 
 Eeuben put down his pipe, and fumbled in his 
 waistcoat pocket. Out of it, with difficulty, he pro- 
 duced a sixpence. 
 
 ' Art tha partial to goodies, Louie ? ' he said, drop- 
 ping his voice almost to a whisper, and holding up the 
 coin before her. 
 
 Louie nodded, her eyes glistening at the magnitude 
 of the coin. Uncle Reuben might be counted on for a 
 certain number of pennies during the year, but silver 
 was unheard of. 
 
 ' Tak it then, child, an welcome. If yo have a 
 sweet tooth — an it's t' way wi moast gells — I conno
 
 CHILDHOOD 8i 
 
 see as it can be onythin else but Providence as gave it 
 yo. So get yorsel soom bull's-eyes, Louie, an — ^an ' — 
 he looked a little conscious as he slipped the coin into 
 her eager hand — ' doan't let on ti your aunt ! She'd 
 think mebbe I wor spoilin your teeth, or summat, 
 — an, Louie' — 
 
 Was Uncle Reuben gone mad ? For the first time 
 in her life, as it seemed to Louie, he was looking at 
 what she had on, nay, was even taking up her dress 
 between his finger and thumb. 
 
 ' Is thissen your Sunday frock, chilt ? ' 
 ' Yes,' said the girl, flushing scarlet, ' bean't it a 
 dishclout ? ' 
 
 And she stood looking down at it with passionate 
 scorn. It was a worn and patched garment of brown 
 alpaca, made out of an ancient gown of Hannah's. 
 
 ' Wal, I'm naw judge i' these matters,' said Reuben, 
 dubiously, drawing out his spectacles. ' It's got naw 
 holes 'at I can see, but it's not varra smart, perhaps. 
 Satan's varra active wi gells on this pint o' dress — yo 
 mun tak noatice o' that, Louie — but — listen heer ' — 
 
 And he drew her nearer to him by her skirt, looking 
 cautiously up and down the lane and across to the 
 farm. 
 
 ' If I get a good price for t' wool this year — an 
 theer's a new merchant coomin round, yan moor o' 
 t' buyin soart nor owd Croker, soa they say, I'st save 
 yo five shillin for a frock, chilt. Yo can goo an buy 
 it, an I'st mak it straight wi yor aunt. But I mun get 
 VOL. I. (i
 
 82 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 a good price, yo know, or your aunt nil be fearfu' bad 
 to manage.' 
 
 And lie gazed up at her as though appealing to her 
 common sense in the matter, and to her understanding 
 of both his and her situation. Louie's cheeks were red, 
 her eyes did not meet his. They looked away, down 
 towards Clough End. 
 
 ' Theer's a blue cotton at Hinton's,' she said, 
 hurriedly — ' a light-blue cotton. They want sixpence 
 farthin, — but Annie Wigson says yo could bate 'em a 
 bit. But what's t' use ? ' she added, with a sudden 
 savage darkening of her bright look — ' she'd tak it 
 away.' 
 
 The tone gave Reuben a shock. But he did not 
 rebuke it. For the first time he and Louie were con- 
 spirators in the same plot. 
 
 ' No, no, I'd see to 'at. But how ud yo get it made ? ' 
 He was beginning to feel a childish interest in his 
 scheme. 
 
 ' Me an Annie Wigson ud mak it oop fast enough. 
 Theer are things I can do for her ; she'd not want no 
 payin, an she's fearfu' good at dressmakin. She wor 
 prenticed two years afore she took ill.' 
 
 ' Gie me a kiss then, my gell ; doan't yo gie naw 
 trooble, an we'st see. But I mun get a good price, yo 
 know.' 
 
 And rising, Reuben bent towards his niece. She 
 rose on tiptoe, and just touched his rough cheek. 
 There was no natural childish effusiveness in the action.
 
 CHILDHOOD 83 
 
 For the seven years since she left her father, Louie had 
 quite unlearnt kissing. 
 
 Keuben proceeded up the lane to the gate leadino- 
 to the moor. He was in the highest spirits. What a 
 mercy he had not bothered Hannah with Mr. Ancrum's 
 remarks ! Why, the boy wouldn't go to a trade, not if 
 he were sent ! 
 
 At the gate he ran against David, who came hastily 
 out of the farmyard to intercept him. 
 
 ' Uncle Reuben, what do they coe that bit watter 
 up theer ? ' and he pointed up the lane towards the main 
 ridge of the Peak. ' Yo know — that bit pool on t' way 
 to th' Downfall ? ' 
 
 The farmer stopped bewildered. 
 
 ' That bit watter ? What they coe that bit watter ? 
 Why, they coe it t' Witch's Pool, or used to i' my 
 yoong days. An for varra good reason too. They 
 drownded an owd witch theer i' my grandfeyther's 
 time — I've heerd my grandmither tell th' tale on't 
 scores o' times. An theer's aw mak o" tales about it, 
 or used to be. I hannot yeerd mony words about it o' 
 late years. Who's been talkin to yo, Davy ? ' 
 
 Louie came running up and listened. 
 
 ' I doan't know,' said the boy, — ^ what soart o' tales ? ' 
 
 ' Why, they'd use to say th' witch walked, on soom 
 neets i' th' year — Easter Eve, most pertickerlerly — 
 an foak wor feeart to goo onywhere near it on those 
 neets. But doan't yo goo listenin to tales, Davy,' said 
 Reuben, with a paternal effusion most rare with him 
 
 a 2
 
 84 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 and born of his recent proceedings ; ' yo'll only freeten 
 yorsel o' neets for nothin.' 
 
 ' What are witches ? ' demanded Louie, scornfully. 
 ' I doan't bleeve in 'em.' 
 
 Reuben frowned a little. 
 
 ' Theer wor witches yance, my gell, becos it's in th' 
 Bible, an whativer's in th' Bible's triie^ and the farmer 
 brought his hand down on the top bar of the gate. 
 'I'm no gien ony judgment about 'em nowadays. 
 Theer wor aw mak o' queer things said about Jenny 
 Crum an Needham Farm i' th' owd days. I've heerd 
 my grandmither say it worn't worth a Christian man's 
 while to live in Needham Farm when Jenny Crum wor 
 about. She meddled wi everythin — wi his lambs, an 
 his coos, an his childer. I niver seed nothin mysel, so 
 I doan't say nowt — not o' mi awn knowledge. But I 
 doan't soomhow bleeve as it's th' Awmighty's will to 
 freeten a Christian coontry wi witches, i' tli 'present 
 djisj)ensation. An murderin's a graat sin, wheder it's 
 witches or oother foak.' 
 
 ' In t' books they doan't coe it t' Witch's Pool at 
 aw,' said Louie, obstinately. ' They coe it t' MermaidJs 
 Pool.' 
 
 ' An anoother book coes it a " Hammer-dry-ad," ' said 
 David, mockingly, ' soa theer yo are.' 
 
 ' Aye, soom faddlin kind of a name they gie it — I 
 know — those Manchester chaps, as cooms trespassin 
 ower t' Scout wheer they aren't wanted. To hear ony 
 yan o' tlieni talk, yo'd think theer wor only three
 
 CHILDHOOD 85 
 
 fellows like 'im cam ower i' three ships, an two were 
 drownded. T'aint ov ony account what they an their 
 books coe it.' 
 
 And Reuben, as he leant against the gate, blew his 
 smoke contemptuously in the air. It was not often 
 that Reuben Grieve allowed himself, or was allowed 
 by his world, to use airs of superiority towards any 
 other human being whatever. But in the case of 
 the Manchester clerks and warehousemen, who came 
 tramping over the grouse moors which Reuben rented 
 for his sheep, and were always being turned back by 
 keepers or himself — and in their case only — did he 
 exercise, once in a while, the commonest privilege of 
 humanity. 
 
 ' Did yo iver know onybody 'at went up on Easter 
 Eve ? ' asked David. 
 
 Both children hung on the answer. 
 
 Reuben scratched his head. The tales of Jenny 
 Crum, once well known to him, had sunk deep into the 
 weaves of memory of late years, and his slow mind had 
 some difficulty in recovering them. But at last he said 
 with the sudden brightening of recollection : 
 
 ' Aye — of coorsG ! — I knew theer wor soom one. Yo 
 know 'im, Davy, owd 'Lias o' Frimley Moor ? He wor 
 alius a foo'hardy sort o' creetur. But if he wor short 
 o' wits when he gan up, he wor mich shorter when he 
 cam down. That wor a rum skit ! — now I think on 't. 
 Sich a seet he wor ! He came by here six o'clock i' th' 
 mornin. I found him hangin ower t' yard gate thcer,
 
 86 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 as wliite an slamp as a puddin cloth oop on eend ; an I 
 browt him in, an was for gien him soom tay. An yor 
 aunt, she gien him a warld o' good advice about his 
 gooins on. But bless yo, he didn't tak in a word o' 't. 
 An for th' tay, he'd naw sooner swallowed it than he 
 runs out, as quick as leetnin, an browt it aw up. He 
 wor fairly clemmed wi' t' cold, — 'at he wor. I put in th' 
 horse, an I took him down to t' Frimley carrier, an we 
 packed him i' soom rugs an straw, an soa he got home. 
 But they put him out o' t' school, an he wor months 
 in his bed. An they do tell me, as nobory can 
 mak owt o' 'Lias Dawson these mony years, i' th' 
 matter o' brains. Eh, but yo shudno meddle wi 
 Satan.' 
 
 ' What d'yo think he saw ? ' asked David, eagerly, 
 his black eyes all aglow. 
 
 ' He saw t' woman wi' t' fish's tail — 'at's what he 
 saw,' said Louie, shrilly. 
 
 Reuben took no notice. He was sunk in silent 
 reverie poking at his pipe. In spite of his confidence 
 in the Almighty's increased goodwill towards the pre- 
 sent dispensation, he was not prepared to say for certain 
 what 'Lias Dawson did or didn't see. 
 
 'Nobory should goo an meddle wi Satan,' he 
 repeated slowly after an interval; and then opening 
 the yard gate he went off" on his usual Sunday walk 
 over the moors to have a look at his more distant 
 sheep. 
 
 Davy stood intently looking after him; so did
 
 CHILDHOOD 2>7 
 
 Louie. She had clasped her hands behind her head, 
 her eyes were wide, her look and attitude all eagerness. 
 She was putting two and two together — her uncle's 
 promise and the mermaid story as the Manchester 
 man had delivered it. You had but to see her and 
 wish, and, according to the Manchester man and his 
 book, you got your wish. The child's hatred of sermons 
 and ministers had not touched her capacity for belief of 
 this sort in the least. She believed feverishly, and was 
 enraged with David for setting up a rival creed, and 
 with her uncle for endorsing it. 
 
 David turned and walked towards the farmyard. 
 Louie followed him, and tapped him peremptorily on 
 the arm. ' I'm gooin up theer Easter Eve — Saturday 
 week ' — and she pointed over her shoulder to the 
 Scout. 
 
 ' Gells conno be out neets,' said David firmly ; ' if I 
 goo I can tell yo.' 
 
 ' Yo'll not goo without me — I'd tell Aunt Hannah ! ' 
 
 ' Yo've naw moor sense nor rotten sticks ! ' said 
 David, angrily. ' Yo'll get your death, an Aunt Hannah 
 '11 be stick stock mad wi boath on us. If I goo she'll 
 niver find out.' 
 
 Louie hesitated a moment. To provoke Aunt 
 Hannah too much might, indeed, endanger the blue 
 frock. But daring and curiosity triumphed. 
 
 ' I doan't care ! ' she said, tossing her head ; ' I'm 
 gooin.' 
 
 David slammed the yard gate, and, hiding himself
 
 88 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 in a corner of tlie cowhouse, fell into moody meditations. 
 It took all the tragic and mysterious edge off an adven- 
 ture he had set his heart on that Louie should insist on 
 going too. But there was no help for it. Next day 
 they planned it together.
 
 CHILDHOOD 89 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 * Reuben, lia yo seen t' childer ? ' inquired Aunt 
 Hannah, poking her head round the door, so as to be 
 heard by her husband, who was sitting outside cobbling 
 at a bit of broken harness. 
 
 ' Noa ; niver seed un since dinner.' 
 
 * They went down to Clough End, two o'clock about, 
 for t' bread, an I've yerd nothin ov em since. Coom in 
 to your tay, Reuben ! I'll keep nothin waitin for them ! 
 They may goo empty if they conno keep time ! ' 
 
 Reuben went in. An hour later the husband and 
 wife came out together, and stood looking down the 
 steep road leading to the town. 
 
 ' Just cast your eye on aw them stockins waitin to 
 be mended,' said Hannah, angrily, turning back to the 
 kitchen, and pointing to a chair piled with various 
 garments. ' That's why she doon it, I spose. I'll be 
 even wi her ! It's a poor soart of a supper she'll get 
 this neet, or he noather. An her stomach aw she 
 cares for ! ' 
 
 Reuben wandered down into the road, strolled up 
 and down for nearly an hour, while the sun set and the
 
 90 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 light waned, went as far as the corner by Wigson's 
 farm, asked a passer-by, saw and heard nothing, and 
 came back, shaking his head in answer to his wife's 
 shrill interrogations. 
 
 ' Wal, if I doan't gie Louie a good smackin,' 
 ejaculated Hannah, exasperated; and she was just 
 going back into the house when an exclamation from 
 Keuben stopped her; instead, she ran out to him, 
 holding on her cap against the east wind. 
 
 ' Look theer,' he said, pointing ; ' what iver is them 
 two up to ? ' 
 
 For suddenly he had noticed outside the gate leading 
 into the field a basket lying on the ground against the 
 wall. The two peered at it with amazement, for it was 
 their own basket, and in it reposed the loaves David 
 had been told to bring back from Clough End, while 
 on the top lay a couple of cotton reels and a card of 
 mending which Louie had been instructed to buy for 
 her aunt. 
 
 After a moment Reuben looked up, his face 
 working. 
 
 ' I'm thinkin, Hannah, they'n roon away ! ' 
 
 It seemed to him as he spoke that such a possibility 
 had been always in his mind. And during the past 
 week there had been much bad blood between aunt and 
 niece. Twice had the child gone to bed supperless, 
 and yesterday, for some impertinence, Hannah had 
 given her a blow, the marks of which on her cheek 
 Reuben had watched guiltily all day. At night he had
 
 CHILDHOOD 
 
 91 
 
 dreamed of Sandy. Since Mr. Ancrum had set him 
 thinking, and so stirred his conscience in various 
 indirect and unforeseen ways, Sandy had been a terror 
 to him ; the dead man had gained a mysterious hold 
 on the living. 
 
 '■ Roon away ! ' repeated Hannah scornfully ; ' whar 
 ud they roon to ? They're just at soom o' their divil- 
 ments, 'at's what they are. An if yo doan't tak a 
 stick to boath on them when they coom back, / v:ill^ 
 soa theer, Reuben Grieve. Yo niver had no sperrit 
 wi 'em — niver — and that's yan reason why they've 
 grown up soa ramjam full o' wickedness.' 
 
 It relieved her to abuse her husband. Reuben said 
 nothing, but hung over the wall, straining his eyes into 
 the gathering darkness. The wooded sides of the great 
 moor which enclosed the valley to the north were 
 fading into dimness, and to the east, above the ridge 
 of Kinder Low, a young moon was rising. The black 
 steep wall of the Scout was swiftly taking to itself that 
 majesty which all mountains win from the approach of 
 night. Involuntarily, Reuben held his breath, listen- 
 ing, hungering for the sound of children's voices on 
 the still air. Nothing — but a few intermittent bird 
 notes and the eternal hurry of water from the moorland 
 to the plain. 
 
 There was a step on the road, and a man passed 
 whistling. 
 
 ' Jim Wigson ! * shouted Hannah, ' is that yo, 
 Jim?'
 
 92 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 The man opened the yard gate, and came through 
 to them. Jim was the eldest son of the neighbouring 
 farmer, whose girls were Louie's only companions. 
 He was a full-blooded swaggering youth, with whom 
 David was generally on bad terms. David despised 
 him for an oaf who could neither read nor write, and 
 hated him for a bully. 
 
 He grinned when Hannah asked him questions 
 about the truants. 
 
 ' Why, they're gone to Edale, th' yoong rascots, 
 I'll uphowd yo! There's a parcel o' gipsies there 
 tellin fortunes, an' lots o' foak ha gone ower there 
 to-day. You may mak your mind up they've gone to 
 Edale. That Louie's a limb, she is. She's got spunk 
 enough to waak to Lunnon if she'd a mind. Oh, they'll 
 be back here soon enough, trust 'em.' 
 
 ' I shut m%j door at nine o'clock,' said Hannah, 
 grimly. ' Them as cooms after that, may sleep as they 
 can.' 
 
 ' Well, that'll be sharp wark for th' eyes if they're 
 gone to Edale,' said Jim, with a laugh. ' It's a good 
 step fro here to Edale.' 
 
 ' Aye, an soom o' 't bad ground,' said Reuben un- 
 easily — ' varra bad ground.' 
 
 ' Aye, it's not good walkin, neets. If they conno see 
 their way when they get top o' t' Downfall, they'll stay 
 theer till it gets mornin, if they've ony sort o' gump- 
 tion. But, bless yo, it bean't gooin to be a dark neet,' — 
 and he pointed to the moon. 'They'll be here afore
 
 CHILDHOOD 93 
 
 yo goo to bed. An if yo want onybody to help yo 
 gie Davy a bastin, just coe me, Mr. Grieve. Good neet 
 to yo.' 
 
 Reuben fidgeted restlessly all the evening. Towards 
 nine he went out on the pretext of seeing to a cow that 
 had lately calved and was in a weakly state. He gave 
 the animal her food and clean litter, doing everything 
 more clumsily than usual. Then he went into the stable 
 and groped about for a lantern that stood in the corner. 
 
 He found it, slipped through the farmyard into the 
 lane, and then lit it out of sight of the house. 
 
 ' It's bad ground top o' t' Downfall,' he said to him- 
 self, apologetically, as he guiltily opened the gate on to 
 the moor — ' varra bad ground.' 
 
 Hannah shut her door that night neither at nine nor 
 at ten. For by the latter hour the master of the house 
 was still absent, and nowhere to be found, in spite of 
 repeated calls from the door and up the lane. Hannah 
 guessed where he had gone without much difficulty ; 
 but her guess only raised her wrath to a white heat. 
 Troublesome brats Sandy's children had always been — 
 Louie more especially — but they had never perpetrated 
 any such overt act of rebellion as this before, and the 
 dour, tyrannical woman was filled with a kind of silent 
 frenzy as she thought of her husband going out to 
 welcome the wanderers. 
 
 ' It's a quare kind o' fatted calf they'll get when 1 
 lay hands on 'em,' she thought to herself as she stood at 
 the front door, in the cold darkness, listening.
 
 94 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 Meanwhile David and Louie, high up on the side of 
 Kinder Scout, were speculating with a fearful joy as to 
 what might be haj^pening at the farm. The manner of 
 their escape had cost them much thought. Should they 
 slip out of the front door instead of going to bed ? But 
 the woodwork of the farm was old and creaking, and 
 the bolts and bars heavy. They were generally secured 
 before supper by Hannah herself, and, though they 
 might be surreptitiously oiled, the children despaired — 
 considering how close the kitchen was to the front 
 door — of getting out without rousing Hannah's sharp 
 ears. Other projects, in which windows and ropes played 
 a part, were discussed. David held strongly that he 
 alone could have managed any one of them, but he 
 declined flatly to attempt them with a ^ gell.' In the 
 same way he alone could have made his way up the 
 Scout and over the river in the dark. But who'd try 
 it with a ' gell ' ? 
 
 The boy's natural conviction of the uselessness of 
 ^ gells ' was never more disagreeably expressed than on 
 this occasion. But he could not shake Louie off. She 
 pinched him when he enraged her beyond bounds, but 
 she never wavered in her determination to go too. 
 
 Finally they decided to brave Aunt Hannah and 
 take the consequences. They meant to be out all 
 night in hiding, and in the morning they would come 
 back and take their beatings. David comfortably 
 reflected that Uncle Reuben couldn't do him much
 
 CHILDHOOD 95 
 
 harm, and, though Louie could hardly flatter herself 
 so far, her tone, also, in the matter was philosophical. 
 
 ' Theer's soom bits o' owd books i" th" top-attic,' she 
 said to David ; ' I'll leave 'em in t' stable, an when 
 we coom home, I'll tie 'em on my back — under mv 
 dress — an she may leather away till Christmas.' 
 
 So on their return from C lough End with the bread — 
 about five o'clock — they slipped into the field, crouching 
 under the wall, so as to escape Hannah's observation, 
 deposited their basket by the gate, took up a bundle 
 and tin box which David had hidden that mornincr 
 under the hedge, and, creeping back again into the 
 road, passed noiselessly through the gate on to the moor, 
 just as Aunt Hannah was lifting the kettle off the fire 
 for tea. 
 
 Then came a wild and leaping flight over the hill, 
 down to the main Kinder stream, across it, and up the 
 face of the Scout — up, and up, with smothered laughter, 
 and tumbles and scratches at every step, and a glee 
 of revolt and adventure swelling every vein. 
 
 It was then a somewhat stormy afternoon, with 
 alternate gusts of wind and gleams of sun playing on 
 the black boulders, the red-brown slopes of the moun- 
 tain. The air was really cold and cutting, promising a 
 frosty night. But the children took no notice of it. 
 Up, and on, through the elastic carpet of heather and 
 bilbeny, and across bogs which showed like veins of 
 vivid green on the dark surface of the moor ; under 
 circling peewits, who fled before them, crying with
 
 96 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 plaintive shrillness to each, other, as though in protest ; 
 and past grouse-nests, whence the startled mothers 
 soared precipitately with angry duckings, each leaving 
 behind her a loose gathering of eggs lying wide and 
 open on the heather, those newly laid gleaming a 
 brighter red beside their fellows. The tin box and its 
 contents rattled under David's arm as he leapt and 
 straddled across the bogs, choosing always the widest 
 jump and the stiffest bit of climb, out of sheer wanton- 
 ness of life and energy. Louie's thin figure, in its 
 skimp cotton dress and red crossover, her long legs in 
 their blue worsted stockings, seemed to fly over the 
 moor, winged, as it were, by an ecstasy of freedom. 
 If one could but be in two places at once — on the 
 Scout — and peeping from some safe corner at Aunt 
 Hannah's wrath ! 
 
 Presently they came to the shoulder whereon — 
 gleaming under the level light — lay the Mermaid's 
 Pool. David had sufficiently verified the fact that the 
 tarn did indeed bear this name in the modern guide- 
 book parlance of the district. Young men and women, 
 out on a holiday from the big towns near, and carrying 
 little red or green ' guides,' spoke of the ' Mermaid's 
 Pool' with the accent of romantic interest. But the 
 boy had also discovered that no native-born farmer or 
 shepherd about had ever heard of the name, or would 
 have a word to say to it. And for the first time he 
 had stumbled full into the deep deposit of witch-lore 
 and belief still surviving in the Kinder Scout district,
 
 CHILDHOOD 
 
 97 
 
 as in all the remoter moorland of the North. Especially 
 had he won the confidence of a certain ' owd Matt,' 
 a shepherd from a farm high on Mardale Moor; and 
 the tales ' owd Matt ' had told him — of mysterious 
 hares coursed at night by angry farmers enraged by the 
 ' bedivilment ' of their stock, shot at with silver slugs, 
 and identified next morning with some dreaded hag or 
 other lying groaning and wounded in her bed — of 
 calves' hearts burnt at midnight with awful ceremonies, 
 while the baffled witch outside flung herself in rage 
 and agony against the close-barred doors and windows 
 — of spells and wise men — these things had sent chills 
 of pleasing horror through the boy's frame. They were 
 altogether new to him, in this vivid personal guise at 
 least, and mixed up with all the familiar names and 
 places of the district; for his childish life had been 
 singularly solitary, giving to books the part which half 
 a century ago would have been taken by tradition ; 
 and, moreover, the witch-belief in general had now little 
 foothold among the younger generation of the Scout, 
 and was only spoken of with reserve and discretion 
 among the older men. 
 
 But the stories once heard had struck deep into the 
 lad's quick and pondering mind. Jenny Crum seemed 
 to have been the latest of all the great witches of 
 Kinder Scout. The memory of her as a real and awful 
 personage was still fresh in the mind of many a grey- 
 haired farmer ; the history of her death was well known ; 
 and most of the local inhabitants, even the boys and 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 girls, turned out, when you came to inquire, to be 
 familiar with the later legends of the Pool, and, as 
 David presently discovered, with one or more tales — 
 for the stories were discrepant — of 'Lias Dawson's 
 meeting with the witch, now fifteen years ago. 
 
 ' Wliat had 'Lias seen ? What would they see ? His 
 flesh crept deliciously. 
 
 ' Wal, owd Mermaid ! ' shouted Louie, defiantly, as 
 soon as she had got her breath again. ' Are yo coomin 
 out to-night ? Yo '11 ha coompany if yo do.' 
 
 David smiled contemptuously and did not conde- 
 scend to argue. 
 
 ' Are yo coomin on ? ' he said, shouldering his box 
 and bundle again. ' They'st be up after us if we 
 doan't look out.' 
 
 And on they went, climbing a steep boulder-strewn 
 slope above the pool till they came to the ' edge ' 
 itself, a tossed and broken battlement of stone, running 
 along the top of the Scout. Here the great black slabs 
 of grit were lying fantastically piled upon each other 
 at every angle and in every possible combination. The 
 path which leads from the Hayfield side across the 
 desolate tableland of the Scout to the Snake Inn on 
 the eastern side of the ridge, ran among them, and 
 many a wayfarer, benighted or mist-bound on the moor, 
 had taken refuge before now in their caverns and 
 recesses, waiting for the light, and dreading to find 
 himself on the cliffs of the Downfall. 
 
 But David pushed on past many hiding-places well
 
 CHILDHOOD 99 
 
 known to him, till the two reached the point where the 
 mountain face sweeps backward in the curve of which 
 the Downfall makes the centre. At the outward edge 
 of the curve a great buttress of ragged and jutting 
 rocks descends perpendicularly towards the valley, like 
 a ruined staircase with displaced and gigantic steps. 
 
 Down this David began to make his way, and Louie 
 jumped, and slid, and swung after him, as lithe and 
 sure-footed as a cat. Presently David stopped. ' This 
 ull do,' he said, surveying the place with a critical eye. 
 
 They had just slid down a sloping chimney of rock, 
 and were now standing on a flat block, over which hung 
 another like a penthouse roof. On the side of the 
 Downfall there was a projecting stone, on which David 
 stepped out to look about him. 
 
 Holding on to a rock above for precaution's sake, 
 he reconnoitred their position. To his left was the 
 black and semicircular cliff, down the centre of which 
 the Downfall stream, now tamed and thinned by the 
 dry spring winds, was trickling. The course of the 
 stream was marked by a vivid orange colour, produced, 
 apparently, in the grit by the action of water ; and 
 about halfway down the fall a mass of rock had recently 
 slipped, leaving a bright scar, through which one saw, 
 as it were, the inner mass of the Peak, the rectangular 
 l)locks, now thick, now thin, as of some Cyclopean 
 masonry, wherewith the earth-forces had built it up in 
 days before a single alp had yet risen on the face of 
 Europe. Below the boy's feet a precipice, which liis
 
 lOO THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 projecting stone overhung, fell to tlie bed of tlie stream. 
 On this side at least they were abundantly protected. 
 
 On the moor side the steep broken ground of the 
 hill came up to the rocky line they had been descend- 
 ing, and oflfered no diflSculty to any s are-footed person. 
 But no path ran anywhere near them, and from the 
 path up above they were screened by the grit ' edge ' 
 already spoken of. Moreover, their penthouse, or 
 half-gable, had towards the Downfall a tolerably wide 
 opening; but towards the moor and the north there 
 was but a narrow hole, which David soon saw could be 
 stopped by a stone. When he crept back into their 
 hiding-place, it pleased him extremely. 
 
 ' They'll niver find us, if they look till next week ! ' 
 he exclaimed exultantly, and, slipping off the heav}^ 
 bundle strapped on his back, he undid its contents. 
 Two old woollen rugs appeared — one a blanket, the 
 other a horse-rug — and wrapped up in the middle of 
 them a jagged piece of tarpaulin, a hammer, some 
 wooden pegs, and two or three pieces of tallow dip. 
 Louie, sitting cross-legged in the other corner, with 
 her chin in her hands, looked on with her usual de- 
 tached and critical air. David had not allowed her 
 much of a voice in the preparations, and she felt an 
 instinctive aversion towards other people's ingenuities. 
 All she had contributed was something to while away 
 the time, in the shape of a bag of bull's-eyes, bought 
 with some of the sixpence Uncle Reuben had given her. 
 Having laid out his stores, David went to work.
 
 CHILDHOOD loi 
 
 Getting out on the projecting stone again, he laid the 
 bit of tarpaulin along the sloping edge of the rock 
 which roofed them, pegged it down into crevices at 
 either end, and laid a stone to hold it in the middle. 
 Then he slipped back again, and, behold, there was a 
 curtain between them and the Downfall, which, as the 
 dusk was fast advancing, made the little den inside 
 almost completely dark. 
 
 ' What's t' good o' that ? ' inquired Louie, scornfully, 
 more than half inclined to put out a mischievous hand 
 and pull it down again. 
 
 ' Doan't worrit, an yo'll see, ' returned David, and 
 Louie's curiosity got the better of her malice. 
 
 Stooping down beside her, he looked through the hole 
 which opened to the moor. His eye travelled down the 
 hillside to the path far below, just visible in the twilight 
 to a practised eye, to the river, to the pasture-fields 
 on the hill beyond, and to the smoke, rising above the 
 tops of some unseen trees, which marked the site of 
 the farmhouse. No one in sight. The boy crawled 
 out, and searched the moor till he found a large flattish 
 stone, which he brought and placed against the open- 
 ing, ready to be drawn quite across it from inside. 
 
 Then he slipped back again, and in the glimmer of 
 light which remained groped for his tin box. Louie 
 stooped over and eagerly watched him open it. Out 
 came a bottle of milk, some large slices of bread, some 
 oatcake, and some cheese. In the corner, recklessly 
 near the cheese, lurked a grease-bespattered lantern
 
 I02 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 and a box of matches. David had borrowed the lantern 
 that afternoon from a Clough End friend under the most 
 solemn vows of ^qcvqcj^ and he drew it out now w^ith a 
 deliberate and special relish. When he had driven a 
 peg into a cranny of the rock, trimmed half a dip 
 carefully, lighted it, put it into the lantern, and hung 
 the lantern on the peg, he fell back on his heels to 
 study the effect, with a beaming countenance, filled all 
 through with the essentially human joy of contri- 
 vance. 
 
 ' Now, then, d'yo see what that tarpaulin 's for ? ' 
 he inquired triumphantly of Louie. 
 
 But Louie's mouth was conveniently occupied with 
 a bull's-eye, and she only sucked it the more vigor- 
 ously in answer. 
 
 ^ Why, JO little silly, if it worn't for that we 
 couldno ha no leet. They'd see us from t' fields even, 
 as soon as it 's real dark.' 
 
 ' Doan't bleeve it,' said Louie, laconically, in a 
 voice much muffled by bull's-eyes. 
 
 ' Wal, yo needn't ; I'm gooin to have my tea.' 
 
 And David, diving into the tin, brought out a 
 hunch of bread and a knob of cheese. The voracity 
 with which he fell on them, soon, with him also, stopped 
 up the channels of speech. Louie, alarmed perhaps 
 by the rapidity with which the mouthfuls disappeared, 
 slid up on her heels and claimed her share. Never was 
 there a more savoury meal than that ! Their little den 
 with its curtain felt warm for the moment after the
 
 CHILDHOOD 103 
 
 keen air of the moor ; the lantern light seemed to 
 shut them in from the world, gave them the sense of 
 settlers carving a home out of the desert, and milk 
 which had been filched from Aunt Hannah lay like 
 nectar in the mouth. 
 
 After their meal both children crept out on to the 
 moor to see what might be going on in the world 
 outside. Darkness was fast advancinof. Arisinor wind 
 swept through the dead bracken, whirled round the 
 great grit boulders, and sent a shiver through Louie's 
 thin body. 
 
 ' It's cowd,' she said pettishly ; ' I'm gooin back.' 
 
 ' Did yo spose it wor gooin to be warm, yo little 
 silly ? That's why I browt t' rugs, of course. Gells 
 never think o' nothin. It's parishin cowd here, neets 
 — fit to tie yo up in knots wi th' rheumatics, like 
 Jim Spedding, if yo doan't mind yorsel. It wor only 
 laying out a neet on Frimley [Moor — poachin, I guess — 
 'at twisted Jim that way.' 
 
 Louie's countenance fell. Jim Spedding was a 
 little crooked greengrocer in Clough End, of whom she 
 had a horror. The biting hostile wind, which obliged 
 her to hold her hat on against it with both hands, the 
 black moor at their feet, the grey sweep of sky, the 
 pale cloudy moon, the darkness which was fast en- 
 veloping them — blotting out the distant waves of hill, 
 and fusing the great blocks of grit above them into 
 one threatening mass — all these became suddenly hate- 
 ful to her. She went back into their den, wrapped
 
 I04 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 herself up in one of the tattered rugs, and crept sulkily 
 into a corner. The lantern gleamed on the child's 
 huddled form, the frowning brow, the great vixenish 
 eyes. She had half a mind to run home, in spite 
 of Aunt Hannah. Hours to ^ wait ! and she loathed 
 waiting. 
 
 But gradually, as the rug warmed her, the passion 
 for adventure and mystery — the vision of the mermaid 
 — the hope of the blue cotton — reasserted themselves, 
 and the little sharp face relaxed. She began to amuse 
 herself with hunting the spiders and beetles which ran 
 across the rocky roof above her head, or crept in and 
 out of the crevices of stone, wondering, no doubt, at 
 this unbidden and tormenting daylight. She caught 
 one or two small blackbeetles in a dirty rag of a 
 handkerchief — for she would not touch them if she could 
 help it — and then it delighted her to push aside the 
 curtain, stretch her hand out into the void darkness, 
 and let them fall into the gulf below. Even if they 
 could fly, she reflected, it must ' gie em a good start.'. 
 
 Meanwhile, David had charged up the hill, filled 
 with a sudden curiosity to see what the top of the 
 Scout might look like by night. He made his way 
 through the battlement of grit, found the little path 
 behind, gleaming white in the moonlight, because of 
 the quartz sheddings which wind and weather are for 
 ever teasing out of the grit, and which drift into the 
 open spaces ; and at last, guided by the sound and the 
 gleam of water, he made out the top of the Downfall,
 
 CHILDHOOD 105 
 
 climbed a high peat bank, and the illimitable plateau 
 of the Scout lay wide and vast before him. 
 
 Here, on the mountain-top, there seemed to be 
 more daylight left than on its rocky sides, and the 
 moon among the parting clouds shone intermittently 
 over the primeval waste. The top of the Peak is, so 
 to speak, a vast black glacier, whereof the crevasses 
 are great fissures, ebon-black in colour, sometimes ten 
 feet deep, and with ten feet more of black water 
 at the bottom. For miles on either side the gi-ound 
 is seamed and torn with these crevasses, now shallower, 
 now deeper, succeeding each other at intervals of a 
 yard or two, and it is they which make the crossing 
 of the Peak in the dark or in mist a matter of danger 
 sometimes even for the native. David, high on his 
 bank, from which the black overhanging eaves curled 
 inwards beneath his feet to a sullen depth of water, 
 could see against the moonlit sky the posts which 
 marked the track from the Downfall to the Snake Inn 
 on the Glossop Road. Miss that track — a matter of some 
 fifteen minutes' walk for the sturdy farmer who knows 
 it well — and you find yourself lost in a region which 
 has no features and no landmarks, where the earth lays 
 snares for you and the mists betray you, and where 
 even in bright sunshine there reigns an eternal and 
 indescribable melancholy. The strangeness and wdld- 
 ness of the scene entered the boy's consciousness, and 
 brought with them a kind of exaltation. He stood 
 gazing ; that inner life of his, of which Louie, his
 
 io6 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 constant companion, knew as good as nothing, asserting 
 itself. 
 
 For the real companions of his heart were not 
 Louie or the boys with whom he had joked and spaiTed 
 at school ; they were ideas, images, sounds, imaginations, 
 caught from books or from the talk of old 'Lias and 
 Mr. Ancrum. He had but to stand still a moment, as it 
 were, to listen, and the voices and sights of another 
 world came out before him like players on to a stage. 
 Spaces of shining water, crossed by ships with decks 
 manned by heroes for whom the blue distance was for ever 
 revealing new lands to conquer, new adventures to affront; 
 the plumed Indian in his forest divining the track of his 
 enemy from a displaced leaf or twig ; the Zealots of 
 Jehovah urging a last frenzied defence of Jehovah's 
 Sanctuary against the Roman host ; and now, last of all, 
 the gloom and flames, the infernal palaces, the towering 
 fiends, the grandiose and lumbering war of ' Paradise 
 Lost' : these things, together -with the names and 
 suggestions of 'Lias's talk — that whole crew of shining, 
 fighting, haranguing men and women whom the old 
 dreamer was for ever bringing into weird action on 
 the moorside — lived in the boy's mind, and in any pause 
 of silence, as we have said, emerged and took posses- 
 sion. 
 
 It was only that morning, in an old meal-chest 
 which had belonged to his grandfather, James Grieve, 
 he had discovered the old calf-bound copy of ' Paradise 
 Lost,' which was now in one of his pockets, balanced by
 
 CHILDHOOD 107 
 
 ' Anson's Voyages ' in the other. All the morning he had 
 been lying hidden in a corner of the sheepfold devouring 
 it, the rolling verse imprinting itself on the boy's plastic 
 memory by a sort of enchantment — 
 
 Yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild, 
 The seat of desolation, void of light, 
 Save what the glimmering of these livid flames 
 Casts pale and dreadful. 
 
 He chanted the words aloud, flinging them out in an 
 ecstasy of pleasure. Before him, as it seemed, there 
 stretched that very plain ' forlorn and wild,' with its 
 black fissures and its impenetrable horizons ; the fitful 
 moonlight stood for the glimmering of the Tartarean 
 flames ; the remembered words and the actual sights 
 played into and fused with each other, till in the cold 
 and darkness the boy thrilled all through with that 
 mingling of joy and terror which is only possible to the 
 creature of fine gifts and high imagination. 
 
 Jenny Orum, too ! A few more hours and he might 
 see her face to face — as 'Lias had seen her. He quaked 
 a little at the thought, but he would not have flinched 
 for the world. Tie was not going to lose his wits, as 
 'Lias did ; and as for Louie, if she were frightened it 
 would do her good to be afraid of something. 
 
 Hark ! He turned, stooped, put his hand to his ear. 
 
 The sound he heard had startled him, turned him 
 pale. But he soon recovered himself. It was the sound 
 of heavy boots on stones, and it was brought to him by 
 the wind, as it seemed, from far below. Some one was
 
 io8 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 coming after them — perhaps more than one. He 
 thought he heard a voice. 
 
 He leapt fissure after fissure like a young roe, fled 
 to the top of the Downfall and looked over. Did the 
 light show through the tarpaulin ? Alack ! — there 
 must be a rent somewhere — for he saw a dim glow- 
 worm light beyond the cliff", on the dark rib of the 
 mountain. It was invisible from below, but any roving 
 eye from the top would be caught by it in an instant. 
 In a second he had raced along the edge, dived in 
 and out of the blocks, guiding his way by a sort of 
 bat's instinct, till he reached the rocky stairway, which 
 he descended at imminent risk of his neck. 
 
 ' Put your hand ower t' leet, Louie, till I move t' 
 stone ! ' 
 
 The light disappeared, David crept in, and the two 
 children crouched together in a glow of excitement. 
 
 ' Is 't Uncle Reuben ? ' whispered Louie, pressing 
 her face against the side of the rocks, and trying to 
 look through the chink between it and the covering 
 stone. 
 
 'Aye — wi a lantern. But there's talkin — theer's 
 someone else. Jim Wigson, mebbe.' 
 
 ' If it's Jim Wigson,' said Louie, between her small, 
 shut teeth, ' I'll bite him ! ' 
 
 ' Cos yo're a gell ! Gel Is and cats bite — they can't 
 do nowt else ! ' 
 
 Whereupon Louie pinched him, and David, giving 
 an involuntary kick as he felt the nip, went into first a
 
 CHILDHOOD 109 
 
 fit of smothered laughter, and then seized her arm in a 
 tight grip. 
 
 ' Keep quiet, conno yo ? Now they're coomin, an I 
 bleeve they're coomin this way ! ' 
 
 But, after another minute's waiting, he was quite 
 unable to obey his own injunction, and he crept out on 
 the stone overlooking the precipice to look. 
 
 ' Coom back ! They'll see yo ! ' cried Louie, in a 
 shrill whisper ; and she caught him by the ankle. 
 
 David gave a kick. ' Let goo ; if yo do 'at I shall 
 fall an be kilt ! ' 
 
 She held her breath. Presently, with an exclama- 
 tion, he knelt down and looked over the edge of the 
 great sloping block which served them for roof. 
 
 ' Wal, I niver ! Theer's nobory but Uncle Eeuben, 
 an he's talkin to hissel. Wal, this is a rum skit ! ' 
 
 And he stayed outside watching, in spite of Louie's 
 angry commands to him to come back into the den. 
 David had no fears of being discovered by Uncle Reuben. 
 If it had been Jim Wigson it would have been dif- 
 ferent. 
 
 Presently, on the path some sixty feet above them, 
 but hidden from them by the mass of tumbled rocks 
 through which they had descended, they heard someone 
 puffing and blowing, a stick striking and slipping on 
 the stones, and weird rays of light stole down the 
 mountain-side, and in and out of the vast blocks with 
 which it was overstrewn. 
 
 ' He's stopt up theer,' said David, creeping in under
 
 no THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 the gable, ' an I mun hear what he's sayin. I'm gooin 
 up nearer. If yo coom we'll be caught.' 
 
 ' Yo stoopid ! ' cried Louie. But he had crawled up 
 the narrow chimney they had come down by in a 
 moment, and she was left alone. Her spirit failed her 
 a little. She daren't climb after him in the dark. 
 
 David clambered in and out, the fierce wind that 
 beat the side of the mountain masking whatever sounds 
 he may have made, till he found himself directly under 
 the place where Reuben Grieve sat, slowly recovering 
 his breath. 
 
 ' Lord ! Lord ! They're aw reet, Sandy — 
 they're aw reet ! ' 
 
 The boy crouched down sharply under an over- 
 hanging stone, arrested by the name — Sandy — his 
 father's name. 
 
 Once or twice since he came to Kinder he had 
 heard it on Uncle Eeuben's lips, once or twice from 
 neighbours who had known James Grieve's sons in their 
 youth. But Sandy had left the farm early and was 
 little remembered, and the true story of Sandy's life 
 was unknown in the valley, though there were many 
 rumours. What the close and timid Reuben heard 
 from Mr. Gurney, the head of Sandy's firm, after 
 Sandy's death, he told to no one but Hannah. The 
 children knew generally, from what Hannah often let 
 fall when she was in a temper, that their mother was 
 a disgrace to them, but they knew no more, and, with 
 the natural instinct of forlorn creatures on the defensive,
 
 CHILDHOOD III 
 
 studiously avoided the subject within the walls of 
 Needham Farm. They might question old 'Lias ; 
 they would suffer many things rather than question 
 their uncle and aunt. 
 
 But David especially had had many secret thoughts 
 he could not put away, of late, about his parents. 
 And to hear his father's name dropped like this into 
 the night moved the lad strangely. He lay close, 
 listening with all his ears, expecting passionately, he 
 knew not what. 
 
 But nothing came — or the wind carried it away. 
 When he was rested, Eeuben got up and began to 
 move about with the lantern, apparently throwing its 
 light from side to side. 
 
 ' David ! Louie ! ' 
 
 The hoarse, weak voice, strained to its utmost pitch, 
 died away on the night wind, and a weird echo came 
 back from the cliffs of the Downfall. 
 
 There was no menace in the cry — rather a piteous 
 entreaty. The truant below had a strange momentary 
 impulse to answer — to disclose himself. But it was 
 soon past, and instead, he crept well out of reach of the 
 rays which flashed over the precipitous ground about 
 him. As he did so he noticed the Mermaid's Pool, 
 gleaming in a pale ray of moonlight, some two 
 hundred feet below. A sudden alarm seized him, lest 
 Reuben should be caught by it, put two and two 
 together and understand. 
 
 But Reuben was absorbed in a discomfort, lialf
 
 112 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 moral, half superstitious, and nothing else reached the 
 slow brain — which was besides preoccupied by Jim 
 Wigson's suggestion. After a bit, he picked up his 
 stick and went on again. David, eagerly watching, 
 tracked him along the path which follows the ridge, and 
 saw the light pause once more close to the Downfall. 
 
 80 far as the boy could see, his uncle made a long 
 stay at a point beyond the stream, the bed of which 
 was just discernible, as a sort of paler streak on the 
 darkness. 
 
 ' Why, that's about whar th' Edale path cooms in,' 
 thought David, wondering. ' What ud he think we'd 
 be doin theer ? ' 
 
 Faint sounds came to him in a lull of the wind, as 
 though Reuben were shouting again — shouting many 
 times. Then the light went wavering on, defining in 
 its course the curved ridge of the further moor, till at 
 last it made a long circuit downwards, disappearing for 
 a minute somewhere in the dark bosom of Kinder 
 Low, about midway between earth and sky. David 
 guessed that Uncle Reuben must be searching the 
 Smithy. Then it descended rapidly, till finally it 
 vanished behind the hill far below, which was just 
 distinguishable in the cloudy moonshine. Uncle 
 Reuben had gone home. 
 
 David drew a long breath. But that patient quest 
 in the dark — the tone of the farmer's call — that 
 mysterious word Sandy, had touched the boy, made 
 him restless. His mood grew a little flat, even a little
 
 CHILDHOOD 113 
 
 remorseful. The joy of their great adventure ebbed a 
 little. 
 
 However, he climbed down again to Louie, and 
 found a dark elfish figure standing outside their den, 
 and dancing v/ith excitement. 
 
 ' Wouldn't yo like to ketch us — wouldn't yo ? — 
 wouldn't yo ? ' screeched the child, beside herself. She 
 too had been watching, had seen the light vanish. 
 
 ' Yo'll have t' parish up after yo if yo doan't howd 
 your tongue,' said David roughly. 
 
 And creeping into their den he relit the lantern. 
 Then he pulled out a watch, borrowed from the same 
 friend who had provided the lantern. Past nine. 
 Two hours and more before they need think of starting 
 downwards for the Pool. 
 
 Louie condescended to come in again, and the 
 stone was drawn close. But how fierce the wind had 
 grown, and how nipping was the air ! David shivered, 
 and looked about for the rugs. He wrapt Louie in the 
 horse-rug, which was heaviest, and tucked the blanket 
 round himself. 
 
 ' Howd that tight round yo,' he commanded, struck 
 with an uneasy sense of responsibility, as he happened 
 to notice how starved she looked, ' an goo to sleep if yo 
 want to. I'll wake yo — I'm gooin to read.' 
 
 Louie rolled the rug round her chrysalis-like, and 
 then, disdaining the rest of David's advice, sat bolt 
 upright against the rock, her wide-open eyes staring 
 defiantly at all within their ken. 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 The minutes went by. David sat close up against 
 the lantern, bitterly cold, but reading voraciously. At 
 last, however, a sharper gust than usual made him look 
 up and turn restive. Louie still sat in the opposite 
 corner as stiffly as before, but over the gi'eat staring 
 eyes the lids had just fallen, sorely against their owner's 
 will ; the head was dropping against the rock ; the 
 child was fast asleep. It occurred to David she looked 
 odd ; the face seemed so gi'ey and white. He in- 
 stinctively took his own blanket and put it over her. 
 The silence and helplessness of her sleep seemed to 
 appeal to him, to change his mood towards her, for the 
 action was brotherly and tender. Then he pushed the 
 stone aside and crept out on to the moor. 
 
 There he stood for a while, with his hands in his 
 pockets, marking time to warm himself. How the 
 wind bit to be sure ! — and it would be colder still by 
 dawn. 
 
 The pool showed dimly beneath him, and the 
 gruesome hour was stealing on them fast. His heart 
 beat quick. The weirdness and loneliness of the night 
 came home to him more than they had done yet. The 
 old woman dragged to her death, the hooting crowd, 
 the inexorable parson, the struggle in the water, the 
 last gurgling cry — the vision rose before him on the 
 dark with an ever ghastlier plainness than a while 
 ago on the mountain-top. How had 'Lias seen her 
 that the sight had changed him so ? Did she come 
 to him with her drowned face and floating grey hair —
 
 CHILDHOOD 115 
 
 gi'ip liim with her cold hands ? David, beginning to 
 thrill in good earnest, obstinately filled in the picture 
 with all the horrible detail he could think of, so as to 
 harden himself. Only now he wished with all his heart 
 that Louie were safe at home. 
 
 An idea occurred to him. He smiled at it, turned 
 it over, gradually resolved upon it. She would lead 
 him a life afterward, but what matter ? — let her ! 
 
 From the far depths of the unseen valley a sound 
 struck upwards, piercing through the noises of river 
 and wind. It was the clock of Clough End church, 
 tolling eleven. 
 
 Well, one could not stand perishing there another 
 hour. He stooped down and crawled in beside Louie. 
 She was sleeping heavily, the added warmth of David's 
 blanket conducing thereto. He hung over her, watching 
 her breathing with a merry look, which gradually 
 became a broad grin. It was a real shame — she would 
 be just mad when she woke up. But mermaids were 
 all stuff, and Jenny Crum would ^ skeer ' her to death. 
 Just in proportion as the adventure became more 
 awesome and more real did the boy's better self awake. 
 He grew soft for his sister, while, as he proudly 
 imagined, iron for himself. 
 
 He crept in under the blanket carefully so as not to 
 disturb her. He was too tired and excited to read. 
 He would think the hour out. So he lay staring at the 
 opposite wall of rock, at its crevices, and creeping ants, 
 at the odd lights and shadows thrown by the lantern, 
 
 I 2
 
 ii6 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 straining his eyes every now and then, that he might 
 be the more sure how wide awake they were. 
 
 Louie stretched herself. What was the matter? 
 Where was she ? What was that smell ? She leant 
 forward on her elbow. The lantern was just going out, 
 and smelt intolerably. A cold grey light was in the 
 little den. What? Where? 
 
 A loud wail broke the morning silence, and David 
 sleex3ing profoundly, his open mouth just showing above 
 che horse-rug, was roused by a shower of blows from 
 Louie's fists. He stirred uneasily, tried to escape them 
 by plunging deeper into the folds, but they pursued him 
 vindictively. 
 
 ' Give ower ! ' he said at last, striking back at 
 random, and then sitting up he rubbed his eyes. There 
 was Louie sitting opposite to him, crying great tears of 
 rage and pain, now rocking her ankle as if it hurt her, 
 and now dealing cuffs at him. 
 
 He hastily pulled out his watch. Half-past four 
 o'clock ! 
 
 ' Yo great gonner, yo ! ' sobbed Louie, her eyes 
 blazing at him through her tears. ' Yo good-for- 
 nowt, yo muffin-yed, yo donkey ! ' And so on through 
 all the words of reviling known to the Derbyshire 
 child. David looked extremely sheepish under them. 
 
 Then suddenly he put his head down on his knees and 
 shook with laughter. The absurdity of it all — of their 
 preparations, of his own terrors, of the disturbance they
 
 CHILDHOOD 117 
 
 had made, all to end in this flat and futile over-sleeping, 
 seized upon him so that he could not control himself. 
 He laughed till he cried, while Louie hit and abused 
 him and cried too. But her crying had a different 
 note, and at last he looked up at her, sobered. 
 
 ' Howd your tongue ! — an doan't keep buUy-raggin 
 like 'at ! What's t' matter wi' yo ? ' 
 
 For answer, she rolled over on the rock and lay on 
 her face, howling with pain. Da\"id sprang up and 
 bent over her. 
 
 ' What ii-ers t' matter wi' yo, Louie ? * 
 
 But she kept him off like a wild cat, and he could 
 make nothing of her till her passion had spent itself 
 and she was quiet again, from sheer exhaustion. 
 
 Then David, who had been standing near, shivering, 
 with his hands in his pockets, tried again. 
 
 ' Now, Louie, do coom home,' he said appealingly. 
 ' I can find yo a place in t' stable ull be warmer nor 
 this. You be parished if yo stay here.' For, ignorant 
 as he was, her looks began to frighten him. 
 
 Louie would have liked never to speak to him again. 
 The thought of the blue cotton and of her own lost 
 chance seemed to be burning a hole in her. But the 
 stress of his miserable look drew her eyes open whether 
 she would or no, and when she saw him her self-pity 
 overcame her. 
 
 ' I conno walk,' she said, with a sudden loud sob. 
 ' It's my leg.' 
 
 * What's wrong wi't?' said David, inspecting it
 
 Ii8 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 anxiously. ' It's got th' cowd in 't, that's what it is ; 
 it's th' rheumatics, I speck. Tak howd on me, I'll 
 help yo down.' 
 
 And with much coaxing on his part and many cries 
 and outbursts on hers he got her up at last, and out of 
 the den. He had tied his tin box across his back, and 
 Louie, with the rugs wrapped about her, clung, limping, 
 and with teeth chattering, on to his arm. The child 
 was in the first throes of a sharp attack of rheumatism, 
 and half her joints were painful. 
 
 That was a humiliating descent ! A cold grey 
 morning was breaking over the moor ; the chimneys of 
 the distant cotton-towns rose out of mists, under a sky 
 streaked with windy cloud. The Mermaid's Pool, as 
 they passed it, looked chill and mocking; and the 
 world altogether felt so raw and lonely that David 
 welcomed the first sheep they came across with a leap 
 of the heart, and positively hungered for a first sight of 
 the farm. How he got Louie — in whose cheeks the 
 fever-spots were rising — over the river he never quite 
 remembered. But at last he had dragged her up the 
 hill, through the fields close to the house, where the 
 lambs were huddling in the nipping dawn beside their 
 mothers, and into the farmyard. 
 
 The house rose before them grey and frowning. 
 The lower windows were shuttered ; in the upper ones 
 the blinds were pulled closely down ; not a sign of life 
 anywhere. Yes ; the dogs had heard them ! Such a 
 barking as began ! Jock, in his kennel by the front
 
 CHILDHOOD 119 
 
 door, nearly burst his chain in his joyful efforts to get 
 at them ; while Tib, jumping the half-door of the out- 
 house in the back yard, where he had been curled up 
 in a heap of bracken, leapt about them and barked like 
 mad. 
 
 Louie sank down crying and deathly pale on a stone 
 by the stable door. 
 
 ' They'll hear that fast enoof,' said David, looking 
 anxiously up at the shut windows. 
 
 But the dogs went on barking, and nothing hap- 
 pened. Ten minutes of chilly waiting passed away. 
 
 ^ Tak him away, do I ' she cried, as Tib jumped up 
 at her. ' No, I woan't ! — I woan't ! ' 
 
 The last words rose to a shriek, as David tried to 
 persuade her to go into the stable, and let him make 
 her a bed in the straw. He stood looking at her 
 in despair. They had always supposed they would be 
 locked out ; but surely the sleepers inside must hear 
 the dogs. He turned and stared at the house, hunger- 
 ing for some sign of life in it. Uncle Reuben would 
 hear them — Uncle Reuben would let them in ! 
 
 But the blinds of the top room never budged. 
 Louie, with her head against the stable-door, and her 
 eyes shut, went on convulsively sobbing, while Tibby 
 sniffed about her for sympathy. And the bitter wind 
 coming from the Scout whistled through the yard and 
 seemed to cut the shivering child like a knife. 
 
 ' I'll mak a clunter agen th' window wi some 
 gravel,' said David at last, in desperation. And he
 
 I20 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 picked up a handful and threw it, first cautiously, then 
 recklessly. Yes ! — at last a hand moved the blind — a 
 hand the children knew well, and a face appeared to 
 one side of it. Hannah Grieve had never looked so 
 forbidding as at that moment. The boy caught one 
 glance of a countenance pale with wrath and sleep- 
 lessness ; of eyes that seemed to blaze at them through 
 the window ; then the blind fell. He waited breath- 
 lessly for minute after minute. Not a sound. 
 
 Furiously he stooped for more gravel, and flung it 
 again and again. For an age, as it seemed to him, no 
 more notice was taken. At last, there was an agitation in 
 the blind, as though more than one person was behind 
 it. It was Hannah who lifted it again; but David 
 thought he caught a motion of her arm as though she 
 were holding some one else back. The lad pointed 
 excitedly to Louie. 
 
 ' She's took bad ! ' he shouted. ' Uncle Eeuben ! — 
 Uncle Reuben ! — coom down an see for yorsel. If yo 
 let her in, yo can keep me out as long as yo like ! ' 
 
 Hannah looked at him, and at the figure huddled 
 against the stable-door — looked deliberately, and then, 
 as deliberately, pulled the blind down lower than before, 
 and not a sign of Reuben anywhere. 
 
 A crimson flame sprang to David's cheek. He 
 rushed at the door, and while with one hand he banged 
 away at the old knocker, he thumped with the other, 
 kicking lustily the while at the panels, till Louie, 
 almost forgetting her pains in the fierce excitement of
 
 CHILDHOOD 121 
 
 the moment, thought he would kick them in. In the 
 intervals of his blows, David could hear voices inside 
 in angry debate. 
 
 ' Uncle Reuben ! ' he shouted, stopping the noise 
 for a moment, ' Uncle Reuben, Louie's turned sick ! 
 She's clemmed wi t' cold. If yo doan't open th' door, 
 I'll go across to Wigson's, and tell 'em as Louie's 
 parishin, an yo're bein th' death on her.' 
 
 The bolt shot back, and there stood Reuben, his red 
 hair sticking up wildly from his head, his frame shaking 
 with unusual excitement. 
 
 ' What are yo makin that roompus for, Davy ? ' began 
 Reuben, with would-be severity. ' Ha done wi yo, or 
 I'll have to tak a stick to yo.' 
 
 But the boy stood akimbo on the steps, and the 
 old farmer shrank before him, as David's black eye 
 travelled past him to a gaunt figure on the stairs. 
 
 ' Yo'll tak noa stick to me. Uncle Reuben. I'll 
 not put up wi it, an yo know it. I'm goin to bring 
 Louie in. We've bin on t' moor by t' Pool lookin for 
 th' owd witch, an we both on us fell asleep, an 
 Louie's took the rheumatics. — Soa theer. — Stan out o' 
 t' way.' 
 
 And running back to Louie, who cried out as he 
 lifted her up, he half carried, half dragged her in. 
 
 ' Why, she's like death,' cried Reuben. ' Hannah ! 
 summat hot — at woonst.' 
 
 But Hannah did not move. She stood at the foot 
 of the stairs, barring the way, the chill morning light
 
 122 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 falling on her threatening attitude, her grey dishevelled 
 hair and all the squalid disarray of her dress. 
 
 ' Them as doos like beggar's brats,' she said grimly, 
 ' may fare like 'em. Til do nowt for 'em.' 
 
 The lad came up to her, his look all daring and 
 resolution — his sister on his arm. But as he met the 
 woman's expression, his lips trembled, he suddenly 
 broke down. 
 
 ' Now, look here,' he cried, with a sob in his throat. 
 ' I know we're beggar's brats. I know yo hate th' seet 
 on us. But I wor t' worst. I'm t' biggest. Tak 
 Louie in, and bully-rag me as mich as yo like. Louie 
 — Louie I ' and he hung over her in a frenzy, ' wake uj), 
 Louie ! ' 
 
 But the child was insensible. Fatigue, the excite- 
 ment of the struggle, the anguish of movement had 
 done their work — she lay like a log upon his arm. 
 
 ' She's fainted,' said Hannah, recognising the fact 
 with a sort of fierce reluctance. ' Tak her up, an doan't 
 Stan blatherin theer.' 
 
 And she moved out of the way. 
 
 The boy gathered uj) the thin figure, and, stumbling 
 over the tattered rugs, carried her up by a superhuman 
 effort. 
 
 Reuben leant against the passage wall, staring at 
 his wife. 
 
 ' Yo're a hard woman, Hannah — a hard woman,' he 
 said to her under his breath, in a low, shaken voice. 
 ' An yo coed em beggar's brats — oh Lord — Lord ! '
 
 CHILDHOOD 123 
 
 ' Howd your tongue, an blow up t' fire/ was all the 
 reply slie vouchsafed him, and Reuben obeyed. 
 
 Meanwhile upstairs Louie had been laid on her bed. 
 Consciousness had come back, and she was moaning. 
 
 David stood beside her in utter despair. He thought 
 she was going to die, and he had done it. At last he 
 sank down beside her, and flinging an arm round her, 
 he laid his hot cheek to her icy one. 
 
 ' Louie, doan't — doan't — I'll tak yo away from 
 here, Louie, when I can. I'll tak care on yo, Louie. 
 Doan't, Louie, — doan't ! ' 
 
 His whole being seemed rent asunder by sympathy 
 and remorse. Uncle Reuben, coming up with some 
 hot gruel, found him sitting on the bed beside his 
 sister, on whom he had heaped all the clothing he 
 could find, the tears running down his cheeks.
 
 124 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 From that niglit forward, David looked upon tlie farm 
 and all his life there with other eyes. 
 
 Up till noWj in spite of the perennial pressure of 
 Hannah's tyrannies, which, however, weighed much 
 less upon him than upon Louie, he had been — as he 
 had let Reuben see — happy enough. The open-air life, 
 the animals, his books, out of all of them he managed 
 to extract a very fair daily sum of enjoyment. And he 
 had been content enough with his daily tasks — herding 
 the sheep, doing the rough work of the stable and 
 cow-house, running Aunt Hannah's errands with the 
 donkey cart to Clough End, helping in the haymaking 
 and the sheep-shearing, or the driving of stock to and 
 from the various markets Reuben frequented. All 
 these things he had done with a curious placidity, a 
 detachment and yet readiness of mind, as one who lends 
 himself, without reluctance, to a life not his own. It 
 was this temper mainly, helped, no doubt, by his unusual 
 tastes and his share of foreign blood and looks, which 
 had set him apart from the other lads of his own class 
 in the neighbourhood. He had few friends of his own
 
 CHILDHOOD 125 
 
 age, yet he was not unpopular, except, perhaps, with 
 an overbearing animal like Jim Wigson, who in- 
 stinctively looked upon other people's brains as an 
 offence to his own muscular pretensions. 
 
 But his Easter Eve struggle with Hannah closed, 
 as it were, a childhood, which, though hard and love- 
 less, had been full of compensations and ignorant of its 
 own worst wants. It woke in him the bitterness of 
 the orphan dependant, who feels himself a burden and 
 loathes his dependence. That utter lack of the 
 commonest natural affection, in which he and Louie 
 had been brought up — for Reuben's timorous advances 
 had done but little to redress the balance — had not 
 troubled him much, till suddenly it was writ so 
 monstrous large in Hannah's refusal to take pity on 
 the fainting and agonised Louie. Thenceforward 
 every morsel of food he took at her hands seemed 
 to go against him. They were paupers, and Aunt 
 Hannah hated them. The fact had been always there, 
 but it had never meant anything substantial to him till 
 now. Xow, at last, that complete dearth of love, in 
 which he had lived since his father died, began to react 
 in revolt and discontent. 
 
 The crisis may have been long preparing, those 
 words of his uncle as to his future, as well as the 
 incident of their locking out, may have had something 
 to say to it. Anyway, a new reflective temper set in. 
 The young immature creature became self-conscious, 
 began to feel the ferments of growth. The ambition
 
 126 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 and the restlessness liis father had foreseen, with dying 
 eyes, began to stir. 
 
 Reuben's qualms returned upon him. On the 15th 
 of May, he and David went to Woodhead, some sixteen 
 or seventeen miles off, to receive the young stock 
 from the Yorkshire breeders, which were to be 
 grazed on the farm during the summer. In general, 
 David had taken the liveliest interest in the animals, 
 in the number and quality of them, in the tariff to be 
 paid for them, and the long road there and back had 
 been cheered for the farmer by the lad's chatter, and 
 by the athletic antics he was always playing with any 
 handy gate or tree which crossed their path. 
 
 ' Them heifers ull want a deal o' grass puttin into 
 'em afoor they'll be wuth onybody's buyin, Davy,' said 
 Reuben, inspecting his mixed herd with a critical eye 
 from a roadside bank, as they climbed the first hill on 
 their return journey. 
 
 ' Aye, they're a poor lot,' returned David, shortly, 
 and walked on as far in front of his uncle as might be, 
 with his head in the air and his moody look fixed on 
 the distance. 
 
 'T' Wigsons ull be late gettin whoam,' began 
 Reuben again, with an uneasy look at the boy. ' Owd 
 Wigson wor that full up wi yell when I last seed him 
 they'll ha a job to get him started straight this neet.' 
 
 To this remark David had nothing at all to say, 
 though in general he had a keen neighbourly relish for 
 the misdeeds of the Wigsons. Reuben did not know
 
 CHILDHOOD 
 
 127 
 
 what to make of him. However, a mile further on he 
 made another attempt : 
 
 ' Lord, how those Yorkshire breeders did talk ! Yo'd 
 ha thowt they'd throw their jaws off the hinges. An a 
 lot o' gimcrack notions as iver wor — wi their new foods, 
 an their pills an strengthening mixtures — messin wi 
 cows as though they wor humans. Why conno they 
 leave God Awmighty alone ? He can bring a calvin 
 cow through beawt ony o' their meddlin, I'll uphowd 
 
 But still not a word from the lad in front. Reuben 
 might as well have talked to the wall beside him. He 
 had grown used to the boy's companionship, and the 
 obstinate silence which David still preserved from hour 
 to hour as they drove their stock homewards made a 
 sensible impression on him. 
 
 Inside the house there was a constant, though in 
 general a silent, struggle going on between the boy and 
 Hannah on the subject of Louie. Louie, after the 
 escapade of Easter Eve, was visited with a sharp attack 
 of inflammatory rheumatism, only just stopping short of 
 rheumatic fever. Hannah got a doctor, and tended her 
 suflficiently while the worst lasted, partly because she 
 was, after all, no monster, but only a commonly sordid 
 and hard-natured woman, and partly because for a day 
 or two Louie's state set her pondering, perforce, what 
 might be the effect on Mr. Gurney's remittances if the 
 child incontinently died. This thought undoubtedly 
 quickened whatever natural instincts might be left in
 
 128 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 Hannali Grieve : and the child had her doctor, and the 
 doctor's orders were more or less followed. 
 
 But when she came downstairs again — a lanky, 
 ghostly creature, much grown, her fierce, black eyes 
 more noticeable than ever in her pinched face — Han- 
 nah's appetite for ' snipin ' — to use the expressive Derby- 
 shire word — returned upon her. The child was almost 
 bullied into her bed again — or would have been if David 
 had not found ways of preventing it. He realised for 
 the first time that, as the young and active male of the 
 household, he was extremely necessary to Hannah's 
 convenience, and now whenever Hannah ill-treated 
 Louie her convenience suffered. David disappeared. 
 Her errands were undone, the wood uncut, and coals 
 and water had to be carried as they best could. As to 
 reprisals, with a strong boy of fourteen, grown very 
 nearly to a man's height, Hannah found herself a good 
 deal at a loss. ' Bully-raggin ' he took no more account 
 of than of a shower of rain ; blows she instinctively felt 
 it would have been dangerous to attempt ; and as to de- 
 privation of food, the lad seemed to thrive on hunger, 
 and never whistled so loudly as when, according to 
 Hannah's calculations, he must have been as ' keen-bitten 
 as a hawk.' For the first time in her life Hannah was 
 to some extent tamed. When there was business about 
 she generally felt it expedient to let Louie alone. 
 
 But this sturdy protection was more really a matter 
 of roused pride and irritation on David's part than of 
 brotherly love. It was the tragedy of Louie Grieve's
 
 CHILDHOO 129 
 
 fate — whether as child or woman — that she was not made 
 to be loved. Whether sine could love, her story will 
 show ; but to love her when you were close to her was 
 always hard. How different the days would have been 
 for the moody lad, who had at last learnt to champion 
 her, if their common isolation and dependence had but 
 brought out in her towards him anything clinging — 
 anything confidential, any true spirit of comradeship • 
 On the contrary, while she was still ill in bed, and 
 almost absolutely dependent on what he might choose 
 to do for her, she gibed and flouted him past bearing, 
 mainly, no doubt, for the sake of breaking the tedium 
 of her confinement a little. And when she was about 
 again, and he was defending her weakness from Aunt 
 Hannah, it seemed to him that she viewed his proceed- 
 ings rather with a malicious than a grateful eye. It 
 amused and excited her to see him stand up to Hannah, 
 but he got little reward from her for his pains. 
 
 She was, as it were, always watching him with a 
 sort of secret discontent. He did not suit her — was 
 not congenial to her. Especially was she exasperated 
 now more than ever by his bookish tastes. Possibly 
 she was doubly jealous of his books ; at any rate, unless 
 he had been constantly on his guard, she would have 
 hidden them, or done them a mischief whenever she 
 could, in her teasing, magpie way. 
 
 One morning, in the grey summer dawn, Louie had 
 just wakened, and was staring sleepily at the door, 
 VOL. I. K
 
 I30 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 when, all on a sudden, it opened — very quietly, as 
 though ]3ushed by some one anxious not to make a 
 noise — and Reuben's head looked round it. Louie, 
 amazed, woke up in earnest, and Reuben came stealthily 
 in. He had his hat and stick under his arm, and one 
 hand held his boots, while he stepped noiselessly in 
 his stocking feet across the room to where Louie lay — 
 ' Louie, are yo awake ? ' 
 
 The child stared up at him, seeing mostly his stubble 
 of red hair, which came like a grotesque halo between 
 her and the wall. Then she nodded. 
 
 ' Doan't let yor aunt hear nothin, Louie. She 
 thinks I'm gone out to th' calves. But, Louie, that mer- 
 chant I towd yo on came yesterday, an he wor a hard 
 un, he wor — as tough as nails, a sight worse nor owd 
 Croker to deal wi, ony day in th' week. I could mak 
 nowt on him — an he gan me sich a poor price, I darn't 
 tak a penny on 't from your aunt — noa, I darn't, Louie, 
 — not if it wor iver so. She'll be reet down mad when 
 she knaws — an I'm real sorry about that bit dress o' 
 yourn, Louie.' 
 
 He stood looking down at her, his spectacles falling 
 forward on his nose, the corners of his mouth drooping 
 — a big ungainly culprit. 
 
 For a second or two the child was quite still, 
 nothing but the black eyes and tossed masses of hair 
 showing above the sheet. Then the eyes blinked 
 suddenly, and flinging out her hand at liim with ^ 
 pas.sionate gesture, as though to push him away, she
 
 CHILDHOOD- 131 
 
 turned on her face and drew the bedclothes over her 
 head. 
 
 ^ Louie ! ' he said — ' Louie ! ' 
 
 But she made no sign, and, at last, with a gro- 
 tesquely concerned face, he went out of the room and 
 downstairs, hanging his head. 
 
 Out of doors, he found David already at work in 
 the cowhouse, but as surly and uncommunicative as 
 before when he was spoken to. That the lad had 
 turned ^ agen his wark,' and was on his way to hate the 
 farm and all it contained, was plain even to Reuben. 
 Why was he so glum and silent — why didn't he speak 
 up ? Perhaps he would, Reuben's conscience replied, 
 if it were conveyed to him that he possessed a sub- 
 stantial portion of six hundred pounds ! 
 
 The boy knew that his uncle watched him— 
 anxiously, as one watches something explosive and 
 incalculable — and felt a sort of contempt for himself 
 that nothing practical came of his own revolt and 
 discontent. But he was torn with indecision. How to 
 leave Louie — what to do with himself without a farthing 
 in the world — whom to go to for advice ? He thought 
 often of Mr. Ancrum, but a fierce distaste for chapels 
 and ministers had been growing on him, and he liad 
 gradually seen less and less of the man who had been 
 the kind comrade and teacher of his early child- 
 hood. His only real companions during this year 
 of moody adolescence were his books. From the for- 
 
 K 2
 
 132 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 gotten deposit in the old meal-ark upstairs, which had 
 yielded ' Paradise Lost,' he drew other treasures by- 
 degrees. He found there, in all, some tattered leaves — 
 three or four books altogether — of Pope's ' Iliad,' about 
 half of Foxe's ' Martyrs ' — the rest having been used 
 apparently by the casual nurses, who came to tend 
 Reuben's poor mother in her last days, to light the fire 
 — a complete copy of Locke ' On the Human Under- 
 standing,' and various volumes of old Calvinist sermons, 
 which he read, partly because his reading appetite was 
 insatiable, partly from a half-contemptuous desire to 
 find out what it might be that Uncle Reuben was 
 always troubling his head about. 
 
 As to 'Lias Dawson, David saw nothing of him for 
 many long weeks after the scene which had led to the 
 adventure of the pool. He heard only that 'Lias was 
 ' bad,' and mostly in his bed, and feeling a little guilty, 
 he hardly knew why, the lad kept away from his old 
 friend. 
 
 Summer and the early autumn passed away. Octo- 
 ber brought a spell of wintry weather ; and one day, 
 as he was bringing the sheep home, he met old 
 Margaret, 'Lias's wife. She stopped and accosted him. 
 
 ' Why doant yo coom and see 'Lias sometimes, 
 Davy, my lad ? Yo might leeten him up a bit, an' he 
 wants it, t' Lord knows. He's been fearfu' bad in his 
 sperrits this summer.' 
 
 The lad stammered out some sheepish excuses, and 
 soon made his way over to Frimley Moor. But the
 
 CHILDHOOD 133 
 
 visits were not so much pleasure as usual. 'Lias was 
 very feeble, and David had a constant temptation to 
 struggle with. He understood that to excite 'Lias, to 
 throw him again into the frenzy which had begotten 
 the vision of the pool, would be a cruel act. But all 
 the same he found it more and more difficult to restrain 
 himself, to keep back the questions which burnt on his 
 tongue. 
 
 As for 'Lias, his half-shut eye would brighten 
 whenever David showed himself at the door, and he 
 would point to a wooden stool on the other side of the 
 fire. 
 
 ' Sit tha down, lad. Margret, gie him soom tay,' 
 or ' Margret, yo'll just find him a bit oatcake.' 
 
 And then the two would fall upon their books 
 together, and the conversation would glide impercep- 
 tibly into one of those scenes of half-dramatic imper- 
 sonation, for which David's relish was still unimpaired. 
 
 But the old man was growing much weaker ; his 
 inventions had less felicity, less range than of old ; and 
 the watchful Margaret, at her loom in the corner, kept 
 an eye on any signs of an undue excitement, and turned 
 out David or any other visitor, neck and crop, without 
 scruple, as soon as it seemed to her that her crippled 
 seer was doing himself a mischief. Poor soul ! she 
 had lived in this tumult of 'Lias's fancies year after 
 year, till the solid world often turned about her. And 
 she, all the while, so simple, so sane — the ordinary 
 good woman, with the ordinary woman's hunger for
 
 134 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 the common blessings of life — a little love, a little 
 chat, a little prosaic well-being ! She had had two 
 sons — they were gone. She had been the proud wife 
 ' o' t' cliverest raon atwixt Sheffield an Manchester,' 
 as Frimley and the adjacent villages had once expressed 
 it, when every mother that respected herself sent her 
 children to 'Lias Dawson's school. And the myste- 
 rious chances of a summer night had sent home upon 
 her hands a poor incapable, ruined in mind and body, 
 who was to live henceforward upon her charity, wan- 
 dering amid the chaotic wreck and debris of his former 
 self. 
 
 Well, she took up her burden ! 
 
 The straggling village on Frimley Moor was mainly 
 inhabited by a colony of silk hand-loom weavers — 
 the descendants of French prisoners in the great 
 war, and employed for the most part by a firm at 
 Leek. Very dainty work was done at Frimley, and 
 very beautiful stuffs made. The craft went from father 
 to son. All Margaret's belongings had been weavers ; 
 but 'Lias, in the pride of his schoolmaster's position, 
 would never allow his wife to use the trade of her 
 youth. When he became dependent on her, Margaret 
 bought a disused loom from a cousin, had it mended and 
 repaired, and set to work. Her fingers had not for- 
 gotten their old cunning ; and when she was paid for 
 her first ' cut,' she hurried home to 'Lias with a 
 reviving joy in her crushed heart. Thenceforward, she 
 lived at her loom ; she became a skilled and favoured
 
 CHILDHOOD 135 
 
 worker, and the work grew dear to her — first, because 
 'Lias lived on it, and, next, because the bright roses 
 and ribbon-patterns she wove into her costly stuffs 
 were a perpetual cheer to her. The moors might 
 frown outside, the snow mio^ht drift ao^ainst the 
 cottage walls : Margaret had always something gay 
 under her fingers, and threw her shuttle with the 
 more zest the darker and colder grew the Derbyshire 
 world without. 
 
 Naturally the result of this long concentration of 
 effort had been to make the poor soul, for whom each 
 day was lived and fought, the apple of Margaret's eye. 
 So long as that bent, white form sat beside her fire, 
 JMargaret was happy. Her heart sank with every fresh 
 sign of age and weakness, revived with every brighter 
 hour. He still lorded it over her often, as he had done 
 in the days of their prosperity, and whenever this old 
 mood came back upon him, Margaret could have cried 
 for pleasure. 
 
 The natural correlative of such devotion was a 
 drying up of interest in all the world beside. Margaret 
 had the selfishness of the angelic woman — everything 
 was judged as it affected her idol. So at first she took 
 no individual interest in David — he cheered up 'Lias 
 — she had no other thought about him. 
 
 On a certain November day David was sitting 
 opposite to 'Lias. The fire burnt between them, and 
 on the fire was a griddle, whereon Margaret had just 
 deposited some oatcakes for tea. The old man was
 
 136 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 sitting drooped in his chair, his chin on his breast, his 
 black eyes staring beyond David at the wall. David 
 was seized with curiosity — what was he thinking about ? 
 — what did he see ? There was a mystery, a weirdness 
 about the figure, about that hungry gaze, which 
 tormented him. His temptation returned upon him 
 irresistibly. 
 
 ' 'Lias,' he said, bending forward, his dark cheek 
 flushing with excitement, ' Louie and I went up, 
 Easter Eve, to t' Pool, but we went to sleep an saw 
 nowt. What was't yo saw, 'Lias ? Did yo see her for 
 sure ? ' 
 
 The old man raised his head frowning, and looked 
 at the boy. But the frown was merely nervous, he had 
 heard nothing. On the other hand, Margaret, whom 
 David had supposed to be in the^^ back kitchen, but 
 who was in reality a few steps behind him, mending 
 something which had gone wrong in her loom, ran for- 
 ward suddenly to the fire, and bending over her griddle 
 somehow promptly threw down the tongs, making a 
 clatter and commotion, in the midst of which the cakes 
 caught, and old 'Lias moved from the fender, saying 
 fretfully, 
 
 ' Yo're that orkard wi things, Margret, yo're like 
 a dog dancin.' 
 
 But in the bustle Margaret had managed to say to 
 David, ' Howd your tongue, noddle-yed, will yo ? ' 
 
 And so unexpected was the lightning from her 
 usually mild blue eyes that David sat dumbfounded.
 
 CHILDHOOD 137 
 
 and presently sulkily got up to go. Margaret followed 
 him out and down the bit of garden. 
 
 And at the gate, when they were well out of 
 hearing of 'Lias, she fell on the boy with a torrent of 
 words, gripping him the while with her long thin hand, 
 so that only violence could have released him. Her 
 eyes flamed at him under the brown woollen shawl she 
 wore pinned under her chin ; the little emaciated crea- 
 ture became a fury. What did he come there for, 
 ' moiderin 'Lias wi his divilments ? ' If he ever said a 
 word of such things again, she'd lock the door on him, 
 and he might go to Jenny Crum for his tea. Not a 
 bite or a sup should he ever have in her house again. 
 
 ' I meant no harm,' said the boy doggedly. ' It 
 wor he towd me about t' witch — it wor he as put it 
 into our yeds — Louie an me.' 
 
 Margaret exclaimed. So it was he tha,t got 'Lias 
 talking about the Pool in the spring ! Some one had 
 been ' cankin wi him about things they didn't owt ' — 
 that she knew — ' and she might ha thowt it wor ' Davy. 
 For that one day's ' worritin ov him ' she had had him 
 on her hands for weeks — off his sleep, and off his feed, 
 and like a blighted thing. * Aye it 's aw play to yo,' 
 she said, trembling all through in her passion, as she 
 held the boy — ' it 's aw play to yo and your minx of a 
 sister. An if it means deein to the old man hissel, ijo 
 don't care ! " Margaret," says the doctor to me last 
 week, " if you can keep his mind quiet he may hang on 
 a bit. But you muima let him excite hissel about owt
 
 138 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 — he niun tak tilings varra easy. He's like a wilted 
 leaf — nobbut t' least thing will bring it down. He's 
 worn varra thin like, heart an lungs, and aw t' rest of 
 him." An d' yo think I'st sit still an see yo 
 murder him — the poor lamb — afore my eyes — me as ha 
 got nowt else but him i' t' wide warld ? No — yo 
 yoong varlet — goo an ast soom one else about Jenny 
 Crum if yo 're just set on meddlin wi divil's wark — 
 but yo '11 no trouble my 'Lias.' 
 
 She took her hands off him, and the boy was going 
 away in a half-sullen silence, when she caught him 
 again. 
 
 ' Who towd yo about 'Lias an t' Pool, nobbut 
 'Lias hissel ? ' 
 
 ' Uncle Reuben towd me summat.' 
 
 ' Aye Reuben Grieve — he put him in t' carrier's cart, 
 an behaved moor like a Christian nor his wife — I alius 
 mind that o' Reuben Grieve, when foak coe him a foo. 
 Wal, I'st tell yo, Davy, an if iver yo want to say a 
 word about Jenny Crum in our house afterwards, yo mun 
 ha a gritstone whar your heart owt to be — that's aw.' 
 
 And she leant over the wall of the little garden, 
 twisting her apron in her old, tremulous hands, and 
 choking down the tears which had begun to rise. Then, 
 looking straight before her, and in a low, plaintive 
 voice, which seemed to float on hidden depths of grief, 
 she told her story. 
 
 It appeared that 'Lias had been 'queer' a good 
 while before the adventure of the Pool. But, according
 
 CHILDHOOD 139 
 
 to his wife, ' he wor that cliver on his good days, foak 
 could mak shift wi him on his bad days ; ' the school 
 still prospered, and money was still plentiful. Then, 
 all of a sudden, the moorland villages round were over- 
 taken by an epidemic of spirit-rapping and table- 
 turning. ' It wor sperrits here, sperrits there, sperrits 
 everywhere — t' warld wor gradely swarmin wi em,' said 
 Margaret bitterly. It was all started, apparently, by a 
 worthless 'felly' from Castleton, who had a great 
 reputation as a medium, and would come over on 
 summer evenings to conduct seances at Frimley and the 
 places near. 'Lias, already in an excitable, over- 
 worked state, was bitten by the new mania, and could 
 think of nothing else. 
 
 One night he and the Castleton medium fell talking 
 about Jenny Crum, the witch of Kinder Scout, and her 
 Easter Eve performances. The medium bet 'Lias a 
 handsome sum that he would not dare face her. 
 'Lias, piqued and wrathful, and 'wi moor yell on 
 board nor he could reetly stan,' took the bet. Margaret 
 heard nothing of it. He announced on Easter Eve 
 that he was going to a brother in Edale for the 
 Sunday, and gave her the slip. She saw no more of 
 him till the carrier brought home to her, on the 
 Sunday morning, a starved and pallid object — 'gone 
 clean silly, an hutched thegither like an owd man o' 
 seventy — he bein fifty-six by his reet years.' With woe 
 and terror she helped him to his bed, and in that bed he 
 stayed for more than a year, while everything went
 
 I40 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 from them — school and savings, and all the joys of 
 life. 
 
 ' An yo'll be wantin to know, like t' rest o' 'em, 
 what he saw ! ' cried Margaret angrily, facing round 
 upon the boy, whose face was, indeed, one question. 
 ^ " Margaret, did he tell tha what t' witch said to un ? " 
 — every blatherin idiot i' th' parish asked me that, wi 
 his mouth open, till I cud ha stopped my ears an run 
 wheniver I seed a livin creetur. What do I keer ? — 
 what doos it matter to me what he saw ? I doan't bleeve 
 he saw owt, if yo ast me. He wor skeert wi his own 
 thinkins, an th' cowd gripped him i' th' in'ards, an 
 twisted him as yo may twist a withe of hay — Aye ! it 
 wor a cnid neet. When I opened t' door i' t' early 
 mornin, t' garden wor aw black — th' ice on t' reservoir 
 wor inches thick. Mony a year afterwards t' foak 
 round here ud talk o' that for an April frost. An my 
 poor 'Lias — lost on that fearfu Scout — sleepin out 
 wi'out a rag to cover him, an skeert soomhow — t' 
 Lord or t' Devil knows how ! And then foak ud have 
 me mak a good tale out o' it — soomthin to gie 'em a 
 ticklin down their back-bane — soomthin to pass an 
 evenin — Liordj I ' 
 
 The wife's voice paused abruptly on this word of 
 imprecation, or appeal, as though her own passion 
 choked her. David stood beside her awkwardly, his 
 eyes fixed on the gravel, wherewith one foot was play- 
 ing. There was no more sullenness in his expression. 
 
 Margaret's hand still played restlessly with the
 
 CHILDHOOD 141 
 
 handkerchief. Her eyes were far away, her mind 
 absorbed by the story of her own fate. Round the 
 moorside, on which the cottage was built, there 
 bent a circling edge of wood, now aflame with all the 
 colour of late autumn. Against its deep reds and 
 browns, Margaret's small profile was thrown out — the 
 profile already of the old woman, with the meeting nose 
 and chin, the hollow cheek, the maze of wrinkles round 
 the eyes. Into that face, worn by the labour and the grief 
 of the poor — into that bending figure, with the peasant 
 shawl folded round the head and shoulders — there had 
 passed all the tragic dignity which belongs to the 
 simple and heartfelt things of human life, to the pain of 
 helpless affection, to the yearning of irremediable loss. 
 
 The boy beside her was too young to feel this. But 
 he felt more, perhaps, than any other lad of the moor- 
 side could have felt. There was, at all times, a natural 
 responsiveness in him of a strange kind, vibrating rather 
 to pain than joy. He stood by her, embarrassed, yet 
 drawn to her — waiting, too, as it seemed to him, for 
 something more that must be coming. 
 
 ' An then,' said Margaret at last, turning to him, 
 and speaking more quietly, but still in a kind of tense 
 way, ' then, when 'Lias wor took bad, yo know, Davy, 
 I had my boys. Did yo ever hear tell o' what came tu 
 'em, Davy ? ' 
 
 The boy shook his head. 
 
 ' Ah ! ' she said, catching her breath painfully, 
 ' they're moast forgotten, is my boys. 'Lias had been
 
 142 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 seven weeks i' his bed, an I wor noan so mich cast 
 down — i' those days I had a sperrit more 'n most. I 
 thowt th' boys ud keer for us — we'd gien em a good 
 bringin up, an they wor boath on 'em larnin trades i' 
 Manchester. Yan evenin — it wor that hot we had aw 
 t' doors an windows open — theer came a man runnin up 
 fro t' railway. An my boys were kilt, Davy — boath on 
 'em — i' Duley Moor Tunnel. They wor coomin to spend 
 Sunday wi us, an it wor an excursion train — I niver 
 knew t' reets on 't ! ' 
 
 She paused and gently wiped away her tears. Her 
 passion had all ebbed. 
 
 ' An I thowt if I cud ha got 'em home an buried 'em, 
 Davy, I could ha borne it better. But they wor aw 
 crushed, an cut about, an riddlet to bits — they wudna let 
 me ha em. And so we kep it fro 'Lias. Soomtimes 
 I think he knows t' boys are dead — an then soomtimes 
 he frets 'at they doan't coom an see him. Fourteen 
 year ago ! An I goo on tellin him they'll coom soon. 
 An last week, when I towd him it, I thowt to mysel it 
 wor just th' naked truth ! ' 
 
 David leant over the gate, pulling at some withered 
 hollyhocks beside. But when, after a minute of 
 choking silence, Margaret caught his look, she saw, 
 though he tried to hide it, that his black eyes were 
 swimming. Her full heart melted altogether. 
 
 ' Oh, Davy, I meant naw offence ! ' she said, catch- 
 ing him by the arm again. ' Yo're a good lad, an yo're 
 alius a welcome seet to that poor creetur. But yo'll
 
 CHILDHOOD 143 
 
 not say owt to trouble him again, laddie — will yo ? If 
 he'd yeerd yo just now — but, by t' Lord's blessin, he 
 did na — he'd ha worked himsel up fearfu' ! I'd ha had 
 naw sleep wi him for neets — like it wor i' th' spring. 
 Yo munna — yo munna ! He's all I ha — his livin 's my 
 livin, Davy — an when he's took away — why, 111 mak 
 shift soomhow to dee too ! ' 
 
 She let him go, and, with a long sigh, she lifted her 
 trembling hands to her head, put her frilled cap 
 straight and her shawl. She was just moving away, 
 when something of a different sort struck her sensitive 
 soul, and she turned again. She lived for 'Lias, but 
 she lived for her religion too, and it seemed to her she 
 had been sinning in her piteous talk. 
 
 ' Dinna think, Davy,' she said hurriedly, ' as I'm 
 complainin o' th' Lord's judgments. They're aw mercies, 
 if we did but know. An He tempers th' wind — He 
 sends us help when we're droppin for sorrow. It 
 worn't for nothin He made us all o' a piece. Theer's 
 good foak i' th' warld — aye, theer is ! An what's moor, 
 theer's soom o" th" best mak o' foak gooin about dressed 
 i' th' worst mak o' clothes. Yo'll find it out when yo 
 want 'em.' 
 
 And with a clearing face, as of one who takes up a 
 burden again and adjusts it anew more easily, she 
 walked back to the house. 
 
 David went down the lane homewards, whistling 
 hard. But once, as he climbed a stile and sat dangling 
 his legs a moment on the top, he felt his eyes wet
 
 144 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 again. He dashed his hand impatiently across them. 
 At this stage of youth he was constantly falling out 
 with and resenting his own faculty of pity, of emotion. 
 The attitude of mind had in it a sort of secret half- 
 conscious terror of what feeling might do with him did 
 he but give it head. He did not want to feel — feeling 
 only hurt and stabbed — he wanted to enjoy, to take in, 
 to discover — to fling the wild energies of mind and 
 body into some action worthy of them. And because 
 he had no knowledge to show him how, and a wavering 
 will, he suffered and deteriorated. 
 
 The Dawsons, indeed, became his close friends. In 
 Margaret there had sprung up a motherly affection for 
 the handsome lonely lad ; and he was grateful. He 
 took her ' cuts ' down to the Olough End office for her ; 
 when the snow was deep on the Scout, and Eeuben and 
 David and the dogs were out after their sheep night 
 and day, the boy still found time to shovel the snow 
 from Margaret's roof and cut a passage for her to the 
 road. The hours he spent this winter by her kitchen 
 fire, chatting with 'Lias, or eating havercakes, or 
 helping Margaret with some household work, supplied 
 him for the first time with something of what his youth 
 was, in truth, thirsting for — the common kindliness of 
 natural affection. 
 
 But certainly, to most observers, he seemed to de- 
 teriorate. Mr. Ancrum could make nothing of him. 
 David held the minister at arm's-length, and mean- 
 while rumours reached him that ' Reuben Grieve's
 
 CHILDHOOD 145 
 
 nevvy ' was beginning to be much seen in the public- 
 houses; he had ceased entirely to go to chapel or 
 Sunday school ; and the local gossips, starting perhaps 
 from a natural prejudice against the sons of unknown 
 and probably disreputable mothers, prophesied freely 
 that the tall, queer-looking lad would go to the bad. 
 
 All this troubled Mr. Ancrum sincerely. Even in 
 the midst of some rising troubles of his own he found 
 the energy to buttonhole Keuben again, and torment 
 him afresh on the subject of a trade for the lad. 
 
 Reuben, flushed and tremulous, went straight from 
 the minister to his wife — with the impetus of Mr. 
 Ancrum's shove, as it were, fresh upon him. Sitting 
 opposite to her in the back kitchen, while she peeled 
 her potatoes with a fierce competence and energy 
 which made his heart sick within him, Reuben told her, 
 with incoherent repetitions of every phrase, that in his 
 opinion the time had come when Mr. Gurney should 
 be written to, and some of Sandy's savings applied to 
 the starting of Sandy's son in the world. 
 
 There was an ominous silence. Hannah's knife 
 flashed, and the potato-peelings fell with a rapidity 
 which fairly paralysed Reuben. In his nervousness, he 
 let fall the name of Mr. Ancrum. Then Hannah broke 
 out. ' Some foo',' she knew, had been meddling, and 
 she might have guessed that fool was Mr. Ancrum. 
 Instead of defending her own position, she fell upon 
 Reuben and his supporter with a rhetoric whereof the 
 moral flavour was positively astounding. Standing 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 with the potato-bowl on one hip, and a hand holding 
 the knife on the other, she delivered her views as 
 to David's laziness, temper, and general good-for- 
 nothingness. If Eeuben chose to incur the risks of 
 throwing such a young lout into town-wickedness, with 
 no one to look after him, let him ; she'd be glad enough 
 to be shut on him. But, as to writing to Mr. Gurney and 
 that sort of talk, she wasn't going to bandy words — 
 not she ; but nobody had ever meddled with Hannah 
 Grieve's affairs yet and found they had done well for 
 themselves. 
 
 ' An I wouldna advise yo, Keuben Grieve, to begin 
 now — no, I wouldna. I gie yo fair noatice. Soa theer's 
 not enough for t' lad to do, Mr. Ancrum, he thinks ? 
 Perhaps he'll tak th' place an try ? I'd not gie him as 
 mich wage as ud fill his stomach i' th" week — noa, I'd 
 not, not if yo wor to ask me — a bletherin windy chap as 
 iver I saw. I'd as soon hear a bird-clapper preach 
 as him — theer'd be more sense an less noise ! An 
 they're findin it out down theer — we'st see th' back on 
 him soon.' 
 
 And to Reuben, looking across the little scullery at 
 his wife, at the harsh face shaken with the rage which 
 these new and intolerable attempts of her husband to 
 dislodge the yoke of years excited in her, it was as 
 though like Christian and Hopeful he were trying to 
 get back into the Way, and found that the floods had 
 risen over it. 
 
 When he was out of her sight, he fell into a bound-
 
 CHILDHOOD 147 
 
 less perplexity. Perhaps she was right, after all. Mr. 
 Ancrum was a meddler and he an ass. When next he 
 saw David, he spoke to the boy harshly, and demanded 
 to know where he went loafing every afternoon. Then, 
 as the days went on, he discovered that Hannah meant 
 to visit his insubordination upon him in various un- 
 pleasant ways. There were certain little creature com- 
 forts, making but small show on the surface of a life of 
 general abstinence and frugality, but which, in the 
 course of years, had grown very important to Reuben, 
 and which Hannah had never denied him. They were 
 now withdrawn. In her present state of temper with 
 her better half, Hannah could not be ' fashed ' with 
 providing them. And no one could force her to brew 
 him his toddy at night, or put his slippers to warm, or 
 keep his meals hot and tasty for him, if some emergency 
 among the animals made him late for his usual hours — 
 certainly not the weak and stammering Eeuben. He 
 was at her mercy, and he chafed indescribably under 
 her unaccustomed neglect. 
 
 As for Mr. Ancrum, his own affairs, poor soul, soon 
 became so absorbing that he had no thoughts left for 
 David. There were dissensions growing between him 
 and the ' Christian Brethren.' He spoke often at the 
 Sunday meetings — too often, by a great deal, for the 
 other shining lights of the congregation. But his 
 much speaking seemed to come rather of restlessness 
 than of a full ' experience,' so torn, subtle, and difficult 
 were the things he said. Grave doubts of bis doctrine
 
 148 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 were rising among some of the ' Brethren ; ' a mean 
 intrigue against him was just starting among others, 
 and he himself was tempest-tossed, not knowing from 
 week to week whether to go or stay. 
 
 Meanwhile, as the winter went on, he soon perceived 
 that Eeuben Grieve's formidable wife was added to the 
 ranks of his enemies. She came to chapel, because for 
 a Christian Brother or Sister to go anywhere else 
 would have been a confession of weakness in the face of 
 other critical and observant communities — such, for 
 instance, as the Calvinistic Methodists, or the Particular 
 Baptists — not to be thought of for a moment. But 
 when he passed her, he got no greeting from her ; she 
 drew her skirts aside, and her stony eye looked beyond 
 him, as though there were nothing on the road. And 
 the sharp-tongued things she said of him came round 
 to him one by one. Eeuben, too, avoided the minister, 
 who, a year or two before, had brought fountains of 
 refreshing to his soul, and in the business of the chapel, 
 of which he was still an elder, showed himself more 
 inarticulate and confused than ever. While David, who 
 had won a corner in Mr. Ancrum's heart since the days 
 of their first acquaintance at Sunday-school — David fled 
 him altogether, and would have none of his counsel or 
 his friendship. The alienation of the Grrieves made 
 another and a bitter drop in the minister's rising cup 
 of failure. 
 
 So the little web of motives and cross-motives, for
 
 CHILDHOOD 149 
 
 the most part of the commonest earthiest hue, yet shot 
 every here and there by a thread or two of heavenlier 
 stuff, went spinning itself the winter through round 
 the unknowing children. The reports which had 
 reached Mr. Ancrum were true enough. David was, in 
 his measure, endeavouring to ' see life.' On a good 
 many winter evenings the lad, now nearly fifteen, and 
 shooting up fast to man's stature, might have been seen 
 among the topers at the ' Crooked Cow,' nay, even 
 lending an excited ear to the Secularist speakers, who 
 did their best to keep things lively at a certain low 
 public kept by one Jerry Timmins, a Radical wag, who 
 had often measured himself both in the meeting-houses 
 and in the streets against the local preachers, and, 
 according to his own following, with no small success. 
 There was a covered skittle-ground attached to this 
 house in which, to the horrid scandal of church and 
 chapel, Sunday dances were sometimes held. A cer- 
 tain fastidious pride, and no doubt a certain conscience 
 towards Reuben, kept David from experimenting in 
 these performances, which were made as demonstra- 
 tively offensive to the pious as they well could be 
 without attracting the attentions of the police. 
 
 But at the disputations between Timmins and a 
 succession of religious enthusiasts, ministers and others, 
 which took place on the same spot during the winter 
 and spring, Da\id was frequently present. 
 
 Neither here, however, nor at the ' Crooked Cow ' 
 did the company feel the moody growing youth to be
 
 ISO THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 one of themselves. He would sit with his pint before 
 him, silent, his great black eyes roving round the 
 persons present. His tongue was sharp on occasion, 
 and his fists ready, so that after various attempts to 
 make a butt of him he was generally let alone. He got 
 what he wanted — he learnt to know what smoking and 
 drinking might be like, and the jokes of the taproom. 
 And all by the help of a few shillings dealt out to him 
 this winter for the first time by Reuben, who gave 
 them to him with a queer deprecating look and an 
 injunction to keep the matter secret from Hannah. 
 As to the use the lad made of them, Reuben was as 
 ignorant as he was of all other practical affairs outside 
 his own few acres.
 
 CHILDHOOD 15: 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 Spring came round again and the warm days of June. 
 At Easter time David liad 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 
 unobserved 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 moor- 
 land, a Scotch breed brought down yearly to the York- 
 shire 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
 
 152 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 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 
 assailants 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 rufiianly look about 
 him, which was wholly new. Instead of rebuking the
 
 CHILDHOOD 153 
 
 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 Ha worth. To David it w^as 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 class, 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, per- 
 haps 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 
 passt. But I doan't know as I've seen yo afoor. Yo're
 
 154 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 nobbut 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. Nobbody hereabouts saw mich in her. 
 But she wi'ote 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 alius 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
 
 CHILDHOOD 155 
 
 wor. They cooms fro Lunnon a purpose, soom on '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'
 
 156 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 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, apolo- 
 getically, 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 passionate 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 soom times, 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 
 repetition 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
 
 CHILDHOOD 157 
 
 common life through a few burning years ; of the pub- 
 lication of the books ; how the men of the Mechanics' 
 Institute (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 piqued ; how, 
 as the noise made by ' Jane Eyre ' and ' Shirley ' grew, 
 a wave of excitement passed through the whole country- 
 side, 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 lasst in her. Aye, when I heerd the bell 
 tolling for Miss Charlotte that Saturday mornin,' said 
 the speaker, shaking her head as she moved away 
 towards the church, ' I cud ha sat down and cried my 
 eyes out. But if she'd ha seen me she'd ha nobbut 
 said, " Martha, get your house straight, an doan't fret 
 forme !" She had sich a sperrit, had Miss Charlotte. 
 Well, now, after aw, I needn't go for t' keys, for tli'
 
 158 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 cliurcli door" s open. It's Bradford early closin day, yo 
 see, an I dessay soom Bradford foak's goin over.' 
 
 So slie 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 passionate 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 hassocks 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 them- 
 selves 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 indig- 
 nant sexton, who, coming quickly up the church, laid 
 hold upon him.
 
 CHILDHOOD 159 
 
 ' No speechmakin in the cliurcii, if you j)lease^ 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 assailant, 
 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 sexton, 
 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. 
 ' 'Ti's 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 sexton, by way of recovering himself -with his party. 
 But he took little by it ; the sexton was a tough cus- 
 tomer. When the local press was shaken in his face,
 
 i6o THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 the vicar's hireling, a canny, weather-beaten York- 
 shireman, merely replied with a twist of the mouth, 
 
 ' Aye, aye, th' newspapers talk — there'd be soom- 
 body goin hoongry if they didn't ; ' or — ' Them 'at has 
 to eat th' Qgg 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 
 sexton, 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 
 sexton 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
 
 CHILDHOOD i6i 
 
 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 j^outh yields itself so 
 hungrily. 
 
 The sexton 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 Bes^," ' murmured the boy un- 
 graciously, and hurried out. But the good man, un- 
 conscious of repulse and kindly disposed towards his 
 sister's waif, stuck to him, and, as they walked down 
 the churchyard together, the difi*erence 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 comer they came upon 
 a bit of waste land, and there in the centre of an ad- 
 miring company was the sexton'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 sexton stopped to listen when they were nearly 
 out of range, and was fairly carried away by the ' go ' 
 of the orator. 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 1 62 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 ' Doan't he do it nateral ! ' he said with enthusiasm 
 to David, after a passage 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 pe^^^ 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 sexton's gate. 
 
 ' Why to be sure, mon,' said the sexton 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 sexton that, after inquiring as to 
 the lad's belongings, and remembering that in his time 
 he had enjoyed many a pipe and ' glass o' yell ' with 
 * owd Reuben Grieve ' at the ' Brown Bess,' the worthy 
 man actually lent him indefinitely three precious
 
 CHILDHOOD 163 
 
 volumes — ' Shirley/ ' Benjamin Franklin's Autobio- 
 graphy,' and ' Nicbolas 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 grass 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 passion 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 lasses — 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 
 
 M 2
 
 1 64 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 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 ' ! 
 
 By a natural transition the mental tumult thus 
 roused led to a more intense self-consciousness than 
 any he had yet known. In measuring himself with 
 the world of ' Shirley ' or of Dickens, he began to 
 realise the problem of his own life with a singular 
 keenness and clearness. Then — last of all — the record 
 of Franklin's life, — of the steady rise of the ill-treated 
 printer's devil to knowledge and power — filled him with 
 an urging and concentrating ambition, and set his 
 thoughts, endowed with a new heat and nimbleness, 
 to the practical unravelling of a practical case. 
 
 They reached home again early on a May day. 
 As he and Reuben, driving their new sheep, mounted 
 the last edge of the moor which separated them from 
 home, the Kinder Valley lay before them, sparkling 
 in a double radiance of morning and of spring. David 
 lingered a minute or two behind his uncle. What a 
 glory of light and freshness in the air — what soaring 
 larks — what dipping swallows ! And the scents from 
 the dew-steeped heather — and the murmur of the blue 
 and glancing stream ! 
 
 The boy's heart went out to the valley — and in the 
 same instant he put it from him. An indescribable 
 energy and exultation took possession of him. The
 
 CHILDHOOD 165 
 
 tide of will for which he had been waiting all these 
 months had risen ; and for the first time he felt swell- 
 ing within him the power to break with habit, to cut 
 his way. 
 
 But what first step to take ? "Whom to consult ? 
 Suddenly he remembered Mr. Ancrum, first with 
 shame, then with hope. Had he thrown away his 
 friend ? Rumour said that things were getting worse 
 and worse at chapel, and that Mr. Ancrum was going 
 to Manchester at once. 
 
 He ran down the slopes of heather towards home 
 as though he would catch and question Mr. Ancrum 
 there and then. And Louie ? Patience ! He would 
 settle everything. Meanwhile, he was regretfully per- 
 suaded that if you had asked Miss Bronte what could 
 be done with a creature like Louie she would have liad 
 a notion or two.
 
 1 66 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 * Reach me tliat book, Louie,' said David peremptorily ; 
 ' it ull be worse for yo if yo don't.' 
 
 The brother and sister were in the Smithy. Louie 
 was squatting on the ground with her hands behind 
 lier, her lips sharply shut as though nothing should drag 
 a word out of them, and her eyes blazing defiance at 
 David, who had her by the shoulder, and looked to 
 the full as fierce as she looked provoking. 
 
 ' Find it ! ' was all she said. He had been absent 
 for a few minutes after a sheep that had got into diffi- 
 culties in the Red Brook, and when he returned, his 
 volume of Rollin's ' Ancient History ' — 'Lias's latest 
 loan — which he had imprudently forgotten to take with 
 him, had disappeared. 
 
 David gave her an angry shake, on which she 
 toppled over among the fallen stones with an exas- 
 perating limpness, and lay there laughing. 
 
 ' Oh, very well,' said David, suddenly recovering 
 himself; 'yo keep yor secret. I'st keep mine, that's 
 aw.'
 
 CHILDHOOD 167 
 
 Louie lay quiet a Qiinute or two, laughing artifi- 
 cially at intervals, while David searched the comers of 
 the Smithy, turning every now and then to give a 
 stealthy look at his sister. 
 
 The bait took. Louie stopped laughing, sat up, 
 put herself straight, and looked about her. 
 
 ' Yo' hain't got a secret,' she said coolly ; ^ I'm not 
 to be took in wi snufi" that way.' 
 
 'Very well,' said David indifferently, ' then I haven't. 
 
 And sitting down near the pan, he took out one of 
 the little boats from the hole near, and began to trim 
 its keel here and there with his knife. The occupation 
 seemed to be absorbing. 
 
 Louie sat for a while, sucking at a lump of sugar 
 she had swept that morning into the omnium gatherum 
 of her pocket. At last she took up a little stone and 
 threw it across at David. 
 
 ' What's your silly old secret about then ? ' 
 
 ' Where's my book, then ? ' replied David, holding 
 up the boat and looking with one eye shut along the 
 keel. 
 
 ' Iv I gie it yer, an yor secret ain't wo'th it, I'll 
 putsoom o' that watter down yor neckhole,' said Louie, 
 nodding towards the place. 
 
 ' If you don't happen find yorsel in tli* pan fust,* 
 remarked IJavid unmoved. 
 
 Louiu sucked at her sugar a little longer, with her 
 hands round her knees. She had thrown off her hat, 
 and the May sun struck full on her hair, on the glossy
 
 1 68 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 brilliance of it, and the natural curls round the temples 
 which disguised a high and narrow brow. She no 
 longer wore her hair loose. In passionate emulation of 
 Annie Wigson, she had it plaited behind, and had 
 begged an end of blue ribbon of Mrs. Wigson to tie it 
 with, so that the beautiful arch of the head showed 
 more plainly than before, while the black eyes and 
 brows seemed to have gained in splendour and effective- 
 ness, from their simpler and severer setting. One 
 could see, too, the length of the small neck and of the 
 thin falling shoulders. It was a face now which made 
 many a stranger in the Clough End streets stop and look 
 backward after meeting it. Not so much because of its 
 beauty, for it was still too thin and starved-looking for 
 beauty, as because of a singular daring and brilliance, 
 a sense of wild and yet conscious power it left behind 
 it. The child had grown a great piece in the last year, 
 so that her knees were hardly decently covered by the 
 last year's cotton frock she wore, and her brown sticks 
 of arms were far beyond her sleeves. David had looked 
 at her once or twice lately with a new kind of scrutiny. 
 He decided that she was a ' rum-looking ' creature, not 
 the least like anybody else's sister, and on the whole 
 his raw impression was that she was plain. 
 
 ' How'll I know yo'll not cheat ? ' she said at last, 
 getting up and surveying him with her arms akimbo. 
 
 ' Can't tell, I'm sure,' was all David vouchsafed. 
 ' Yo mun find out.' 
 
 Louie studied him threateningly^.
 
 CHILDHOOD 169 
 
 ' Weelj I'd be even wi yo soomliow,' was lier final 
 conclusion ; and disappearing tkrough the ruined door- 
 way, slie ran down the slope to where one of the great 
 mill-stones lay hidden in the heather, and diving into 
 its central hole, produced the book, keenly watched the 
 while by David, who took mental note of the hiding- 
 place. 
 
 ' Naw then,' she said, walking up to him with her 
 hands behind her and the book in them, • tell me your 
 secret.' 
 
 David first forcibly abstracted the book and made 
 believe to box her ears, then went back to his seat and 
 his boat. 
 
 ' Go on, can't yo ! ' exclaimed Louie, after a minute, 
 stamping at him. 
 
 David laid down his boat deliberately. 
 
 ' Well, yo won't like it,' he said ; ' I know that. 
 But — I'm off to Manchester, that's aw — as soon as I 
 can goo ; as soon as iver I can hear of ony thing. An 
 I'm gooin if I don't hear of onything. I'm gooin ony- 
 ways ; I'm tired o' this. So now yo know.' 
 
 Louie stared at him. 
 
 ' Yo ain't ! ' she said, passionately, as though she 
 were choking. 
 
 David instinctively put up his hands to keep her off. 
 He thought she would have fallen upon him there and 
 then and beaten him for his ' secret.' 
 
 But, instead, she flung away out of the Smithy, and 
 David was left alone and in amazement. Then he got
 
 170 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 up and went to look, stirred with the sudden fear that 
 she might have run off to the farm with the news of 
 what he had been saying, which would have precipitated 
 matters unpleasantly. 
 
 No one was to be seen from outside, either on the 
 moor path or in the fields beyond, and she could not 
 possibly have got out of sight so soon. So he searched 
 among the heather and the bilberry hummocks, till he 
 caught sight of a bit of print cotton in a hollow just 
 below the quaint stone shooting-hut, built some sixty 
 years ago on the side of the Scout for the convenience 
 of sportsmen. David stalked the cotton, and found her 
 lying prone and with her hat, as usual, firmly held 
 down over her ears. At sight of her something told 
 him very plainly he had been a brute to tell her his 
 news so. There was a strong moral shock which for 
 the moment transformed him. 
 
 He went and lifted her up in spite of her struggles. 
 Her face was crimson with tears, but she hit out at him 
 wildly to prevent his seeing them. ' Now, Louie, look 
 here,' he said, holding her hands, ' I didna mean to tell 
 yo short and sharp like that, but yo do put a body's 
 back up so, there's no bearin it. Don't take on, Louie. 
 I'll coom back when I've found soomthin, an take you 
 away, too, niver fear. Theer's lots o' things gells can 
 do in Manchester — tailorin, or machinin, or dress- 
 makin, or soomthin like that. But yo must get a bit 
 older, an I must find a place for us to live in, so theer's 
 naw use fratchin, like a spiteful hen. Yo must bide
 
 CHILDHOOD 171 
 
 and I must bide. But I'll coom back for yo, I swear 
 I will, an we'll get shut on Aunt Hannah, and live in 
 a little place by ourselves, as merry as larks.' 
 
 He looked at her appealingly. Her head was turned 
 sullenly away from him, her thin chest still heaved 
 with sobs. But when he stopped speaking she jerked 
 round upon him. 
 
 ' Leave me behint, an I'll murder her ! ' 
 
 The child's look was demoniacal. ' No, yo won't,' 
 said David, laughing. ' I" th' fust place. Aunt Hannah 
 could settle a midge like yo vA yan finger. I' th' 
 second, hangin isn't a coomfortable way o' deein. Yo 
 wait till I coom for yo, an when we'st ha got reet away, 
 an' can just laugh in her face if she riles us, — ilwi '11 
 spite her mich moor nor murderin.' 
 
 The black eyes gleamed uncannily for a moment 
 and the sobbing ceased. But the gleam passed away, 
 and the child sat staring at the moorland distance, 
 seeing nothing. There was such an unconscious 
 animal pain in the attitude, the pain of the creature 
 that feels itself alone and deserted, that David watched 
 her in a puzzled silence. Louie was always mysterious, 
 whether in her rages or her griefs, but he had never 
 seen her sob quite like this before. He felt a sort of 
 strangeness in her fixed gaze, and with a certain timidity 
 he put out his arm and laid it round her shoulder. 
 Still she did not move. Then he slid up closer in the 
 heather, and kissed her. His heart, which had seemed 
 all frostbound for months, melted, and that hunger for
 
 172 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 love — home-love, mother-love — which was, perhaps, at 
 the very bottom of his moody complex youth, found a 
 voice. 
 
 ' Louie, couldn't yo be nice to me soomtimes — 
 couldn't yo just take an interest, like, yo know — as if 
 yo cared a bit — couldn't yo ? Other gells do. I'm a 
 brute to yo, I know, often, but yo keep aggin an 
 teasin, an theer's niver a bit o' peace. Look here, 
 Loo, yo give up, an I'st give up. Theer's nobbut us 
 two — nawbody else cares a ha'porth about the yan or 
 the tother — coom along ! yo give up, an I'st give 
 up.' 
 
 He looked at her anxiously. There was a new 
 manliness in his tone, answering to his growing man- 
 liness of stature. Two slow tears rolled down her 
 cheeks, but she said nothing. She couldn't for the life 
 of her. She blinked, furiously fighting with her tears, 
 and at last she put up an impatient hand which left a 
 long brown streak across her miserable little face. 
 
 ' Yo havn't got no trade,' she said. ' Yo'll be 
 clemmed.' 
 
 David withdrew his arm, and gulped down his re- 
 buff. ' No, I sha'n't,' he said. ' Now you just listen 
 here.' And he described how, the day before, he had 
 been to see Mr. Ancrum, to consult him about leaving 
 Kinder, and what had come of it. 
 
 He had been just in time. Mr. Ancrum, worn, ill, 
 and harassed to death, had been cheered a little during 
 his last days at Clough End by the appearance of David,
 
 CHILDHOOD 173 
 
 very red and monosyllabic, on his doorstep. The lad's 
 return, as he soon perceived, was due simply to the 
 stress of his own affairs, and not to any knowledge of 
 or sympathy with the minister's miseries. But, none 
 the less, there was a certain balm in it for Mr. Ancrum, 
 and they had sat long discussing matters. Yes, the 
 minister was going — would look out at Manchester for 
 an opening for David, in the bookselling trade by pre- 
 ference, and would write at once. But Davy must not 
 leave a quarrel behind him. He must, if possible, get 
 his uncle's consent, which Mr. Ancrum thought would 
 be given. 
 
 ' I'm willing to lend you a hand, Davy,' he had said, 
 ' for you're on the way to no trade but loafing as you 
 are now ; but square it with Grieve. You can, if you 
 don't shirk the trouble of it.' 
 
 Whereupon Davy had made a wry face and said 
 nothing. But to Louie he expressed himself plainly 
 enough. 
 
 ' I'll not say owt to oather on 'em,' he said, pointiug 
 to the chimneys of the farm, ' till the day I bid 'em 
 good-bye. Uncle Reuben, mebbe, ud be for givin me 
 somethin to start wi, an Aunt Hannah ud be for 
 cloutin him over the head for thinkin of it. No, I'll 
 not be beholden to yan o' them. I've got a shillin or 
 two for my fare, and I'll keep mysel.' 
 
 ' What wages uU yo get ? ' inquired Louie shai-ply. 
 
 ' Nothin very fat, that's sure,' laughed David. ' If 
 Mr. Ancrum can do as he says, an find me a place in
 
 174 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 a book-shop, they'll, mebbe, gie me six shillin to begin 
 wi.' 
 
 ' An what ull yo do wi 'at ? ' 
 
 ' Live on't,' replied David briefly. 
 
 ' Yo conno, I tell yo ! Yo'll ha food an firin, 
 cloos, an lodgin to pay out o't. Yo conno do 't — soa 
 theer.' 
 
 Louie looked him up and down defiantly. David 
 was oddly struck with the practical knowledge her re- 
 mark showed. How did such a wild imp know any- 
 thing about the cost of lodging and firing ? 
 
 * I tell yo I'll live on't,' he replied with energy ; 
 'I'll get a room for 'half a crown — two shillin, p'r'aps — 
 an I'll live on sixpence a day, see if I don't.' 
 
 ' See if yo do ! ' retorted Louie, ' clemm on it more 
 like.' 
 
 ' That's all yo know about it, miss,' said David, in a 
 tone, however, of high good humour ; and, stretching 
 one of his hands down a little further into his trousers 
 pocket, he drew out a paper-covered book, so that just 
 the top of it appeared. 'Yo're alius naggin about 
 books. Well ; I tell yo, I've got an idea out o' thissen 
 ull be worth shillins a week to me. It's about 
 Benjamin Franklin. Never yo mind who Benjamin 
 Franklin wor ; but he wor a varra cute soart of a felly ; 
 an when he wor yoong, an had nobbut a few shillins 
 a week, he made shift to save soom o' them shillins, 
 becos he found he could do without eatin flesh meat, 
 an that wi bread an meal an greeii stuff, a mon could
 
 CHILDHOOD 175 
 
 do very well, an save soom brass every week. When I 
 go to Manchester,' continued David emphatically, ' I 
 shall niver touch meat. I shall buy a bag o' oatmeal 
 like Grandfeyther Grieve lived on, boil it for mysel, 
 wi a sup o' milk, perhaps, an soom salt or treacle to gi 
 it a taste. An I'll buy apples an pears an oranges 
 cheap soomwhere, an store 'em. Yo mun ha a deal o' 
 fruit when yo doan't ha meat. Fourpence ! ' cried 
 Davy, his enthusiasm rising, ' I'll live on thruppence a 
 day, as sure as yo're sittin theer ! Seven thruppences 
 is one an nine ; lodgin, two shillin — three an nine. 
 Two an three left over, for cloos, firin, an pocket 
 money. Why, I'll be rich before yo can look roun ! 
 An then, o' coorse, they'll not keep me long on six 
 shillins a week. In the book-trade I'll soon be wuth 
 ten, an moor ! ' 
 
 And, springing up, he began to dance a sort of 
 cut and shuffle before her out of sheer spirits. Louie 
 surveyed him with a flushed and sparkling face. The 
 nimbleness of David's wits had never come home to 
 her till now. 
 
 ' What ull I earn when I coom ? ' she demanded 
 abruptly. 
 
 David stopped his cut and shuffle, and took critical 
 stock of his sister for a moment. 
 
 ' Now, look here, Louie, yo're goin to stop where 
 yo are, a good bit yet,' he replied decidedly. ' Yo'U 
 have to wait two year or so — moor 'n one, onyways,' 
 he went on hastily, warned by her start and fierce
 
 176 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 expression. ' Yo know, they can ha th' law on yo,' 
 and he jerked his thumb over his shoulder towards the 
 farm. ' Boys is all reet, but gells can't do nothink 
 till they're sixteen. They mun stay wi th' foak as 
 browt 'em up, and if they run away afore their six- 
 teenth birthday — they gets put in prison.' 
 
 David poured out his legal fictions hastily, three 
 parts convinced of them at any rate, and watched 
 eagerly for their effect on Louie. 
 
 She tossed her head scornfully. ' Doan't b'lieve it. 
 Yo're jest tellin lees to get shut o' me. Nex summer ii 
 yo doan't send for me, I'll run away, whativer yo may 
 say. So yo know.' 
 
 ' You're a tormentin thing ! ' exclaimed David, ex- 
 asperated, and began savagely to kick stones down the 
 hill. Then, recovering himself, he came and sat down 
 beside her again. 
 
 ' I doan't want to get shut on yo, Louie. But yo 
 won't understand nothin.' 
 
 He stopped, and began to bite at a stalk of heather, 
 by way of helping himself. His mind was full of vague 
 and yet urgent thoughts as to what became of girls in 
 large towns with no one to look after them, things he 
 had heard said at the public-house, things he had read. 
 He had never dreamt of leaving Louie to Aunt Hannah's 
 tender mercies. Of course he must take her away when 
 he could. She was his charge, his belonging. But all 
 the same she was a ' limb ' ; in his opinion she always 
 would be a ' limb.' How could he be sure of her. getting
 
 CHILDHOOD 177 
 
 work, and who on earth was to look after her when he 
 was away ? 
 
 Suddenly Louie broke in on his perplexities. 
 ' I'll go tailorin,' she cried triumphantly. ' Now I 
 know — it wor t' Wigsons' cousin Em'ly went to Man- 
 chester ; an she earned nine shillin a week — nine 
 shillin I tell yo, an found her own thread. Yo'll be 
 taken ten shillin, yo say, nex year ? an I'll be takin 
 nine. That's nineteen shillin fur th' two on us. Isn't 
 it nineteen shillin ? ' she said peremptorily, seizing his 
 arm with her long fingers. 
 
 ' Well, I dessay it is,' said David, reluctantly. ' An 
 precious tired yo'll be o' settin stitchin mornin, noon, 
 an neet. Like to see yo do 't.' 
 
 ' I'd do it fur nine shillin,' she said doggedly, and 
 sat looking straight before her, with wide glittering 
 eyes. She understood from David's talk that, what 
 with meal, apples, and gi-eenstuff, your ' eatin ' need 
 cost you nothing. There would be shillings and 
 shillings to buy things with. The child who never 
 had a copper but what Uncle Reuben gave her, who 
 passed her whole existence in greedily coveting the 
 unattainable and in chafing under the rule of an iron 
 and miserly thrift, felt suddenly intoxicated by this 
 golden prospect of illimitable ' buying.' And what 
 could possibly prevent its coming true ? Any fool — 
 such as ' Wigson's Em'ly ' — could earn nine shillings a 
 week at tailoring ; and to make money at your stomach's 
 expense seemed suddenly to put you in possession of a 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 bank on which the largest drawings were possible. It 
 all looked so ingenious, so feasible, so wholly within 
 the grip of that indomitable will the child felt tense 
 within her. 
 
 So the two sat gazing out over the moorland. It 
 was the first summer day, fresh and timid yet, as 
 though the world and the sun were still ill-acquainted. 
 Down below, over the sparkling brook, an old thorn 
 was quivering in the warm breeze, its bright thin green 
 shining against the brown heather. The larches alone 
 had as yet any richness of leaf, but the sycamore-buds 
 glittered in the sun, and the hedges in the lower valley 
 made wavy green lines delightful to the eye. A warm 
 soft air laden with moist scents of earth and plant 
 bathed the whole mountain-side, and played with 
 Louie's hair. Nature wooed them with her best, and 
 neither had a thought or a look for her. 
 
 Suddenly Louie sprang up. 
 
 ' Theer's Aunt Hannah shoutin. I mun goo an get 
 t' coos.' 
 
 David ran down the hill with her. 
 
 ^ What'll yo do if I tell ? ' she inquired maliciously 
 at the bottom. 
 
 ' If yo do I shall cut at yance, and yo'll ha all 
 the longer time to be by yoursen.' 
 
 A darkness fell over the girl's hard shining gaze. 
 She turned away abruptly, then, when she had gone a 
 few steps, turned and came back to where David stood 
 whistling and calling for the dogs. She caught him
 
 CHILDHOOD 179 
 
 suddenly from behind round the neck. Naturally he 
 thought she was up to some mischief, and struggled 
 away from her with an angry exclamation. But she 
 held him tight and thrust something hard and sweet 
 against his lips. Involuntarily his mouth opened and 
 admitted an enticing cake of butter-scotch. She rammed 
 it in with her wiry little hand so that he almost choked, 
 and then with a shrill laugh she turned and fled, leap- 
 ing down the heather between the boulders, across the 
 brook, over the wall, and out of sight. 
 
 David was left behind, sucking. The sweetness he 
 was conscious of was not all in the mouth. Never that 
 he could remember had Louie shown him any such 
 mark of favour. 
 
 Next day David was sent down with the donkey- 
 cart to Clough End to bring up some weekly stores for 
 the family, Hannah specially charging him to call at 
 the post-oj0fice and inquire for letters. He started about 
 nine o'clock, and the twelve o'clock dinner passed by 
 without his reappearance. 
 
 When she had finished her supply of meat and suet- 
 pudding, after a meal during which no one of the 
 three persons at table had uttered a word, Louie 
 abruptly pushed her plate back again towards Hannah. 
 
 ' David ! ' was all she said. 
 
 ' Mind your manners, miss,' said Hannah, angrily. 
 * Them as cooms late gets nowt.' And, getting up, she 
 cleared the table and put tlie food away with even 
 
 N 2
 
 i8o THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 greater rapidity than usual. The kitchen was no sooner 
 quite clear than the donkey-cart was heard outside, and 
 David appeared, crimsoned with heat, and panting from 
 the long tug uphill, through which he had just dragged 
 the donkey. 
 
 He carried a letter, which he put down on the table. 
 Then he looked round the kitchen. 
 
 'Aunt's put t' dinner away,' said Louie, shortly, 
 ' 'cos yo came late.' 
 
 David's expression changed. ' Then nex time she 
 wants owt, she can fetch it fro Clough End hersel,' he 
 said violently, and went out. 
 
 Hannah came forward and laid eager hands on the 
 letter, which was from London, addressed in a clerk's 
 hand. 
 
 * Louie ! ' she called imperatively, ' tak un out soom 
 bread-an- drippin . ' 
 
 Louie put some on a plate, and went out with it to 
 the cowhouse, where David sat on a stool, occupying 
 himself in cutting the pages of a number of the Vege- 
 tarian Kelts, lent him in Clough End, wdth trembling 
 hands, while a fierce red spot burnt in either cheek. 
 
 ' Tak it away ! ' he said, almost knocking the plate 
 out of Louie's hands ; ' it chokes me to eat a crumb o' 
 hers.' 
 
 As Louie was bearing the plate back through the 
 yard, Uncle Reuben came by. ' What's — what's 'at ? ' 
 he said, peering shortsightedly at what she held. Every 
 month of late Reuben's back had seemed to grow
 
 CHILDHOOD i8i 
 
 rounder, his sight less, and his wits of less practical 
 use. 
 
 ' Summat for David,' said Louie, shortly, ' 'cos Aunt 
 Hannah woan't gie him no dinner. But he woan't ha 
 it.' 
 
 Reuben's sudden look of trouble was unmistakable. 
 ' Whar is he ? ' 
 
 ' I' th' coo-house.' 
 
 Reuben went his way, and found the dinnerless 
 boy deep, or apparently deep, in recipes for vegetable 
 soups. 
 
 ' What made yo late, Davy ? ' he asked him, as he 
 stood over him. 
 
 David had more than half a mind not to answer, 
 but at last he jerked out fiercely, ' Waitin for th' second 
 post, fust ; then t' donkey fell down half a mile out o' 
 t' town, an th' things were spilt. There was nobody 
 about, an' I had a job to get 'un up at a'.' 
 
 Reuben nervously thrust his hands far into his coat- 
 pockets. 
 
 ' Coom wi me, Davy, an I'st raak yur aunt gie 
 yer yur dinner.' 
 
 ' I wouldn't eat a morsel if she went down on her 
 bended knees to me,' the lad broke out, and, springing 
 up, he strode sombrely through the yard and into the 
 fields. 
 
 Reuben went slowly back into the house. Hannah 
 was in the parlour — so he saw through the half-opened 
 door. He went into the room, which smelt mustv and
 
 1 82 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 close from disuse. Hannali was standing over tlie open 
 drawer of an old-fasKioned corner cupboard, carefully 
 scanning a letter and enclosure before she locked 
 them up. 
 
 ' Is 't Mr. Gurney's money ? ' Reuben said to her, in 
 a queer voice. 
 
 She was startled, not having heard him come in, 
 but she put what she held into the drawer all the more 
 deliberately, and turned the key. 
 
 ' Ay, 't is.' 
 
 Reuben sat himself down on one of the hard chairs 
 beside the table in the middle of the room. The light 
 streaming through the shutters Hannah had just opened 
 streamed in on his grizzling head and face working with 
 emotion. 
 
 ' It's stolen money,' he said hoarsely. ' Yo're 
 stealin it fro Davy.' 
 
 Hannah smiled grimly, and withdrew the key. 
 
 * I'm paying missel an yo, Reuben Grieve, for t' 
 keep o' two wuthless brats as cost moor nor they pays,' 
 she said, with an accent which somehow sent a shiver 
 through Reuben. ' / don't keep udder foaks' childer 
 fur nothin.' 
 
 ^ Yo've had moor nor they cost for seven year,' said 
 Reuben, with the same thick tense utterance. ' Yo 
 should let Davy ha it, an gie him a trade.' 
 
 Hannah walked up to the door and shut it. 
 
 ' I should, should I ? An who'll pay for Louie — 
 for 3'our luvely limb of a niece ? It \id tak about that,'
 
 CHILDHOOD 183 
 
 and slie pointed grimly to the di'awer, ' to coover wliat 
 she wastes an spiles i' t' yeer.' 
 
 ' Yo get her work, Hannah. Her bit an sup cost 
 yo most nothin. I cud wark a bit moor — soa cud 
 yo. Yo're hurtin me i' mi conscience, Hannah — yo're 
 coomin atwixt me an th' Lord ! ' 
 
 He brought a shaking hand down on the damask 
 table-cloth among the wool mats and the chapel hymn- 
 books which adorned it. His long, loose frame had 
 drawn itself up with a certain dignity. 
 
 ' Ha done wi your cantin ! ' said Hannah under her 
 breath, laying her two hands on the table, and stooping 
 down so as to face him with more effect. The phrase 
 startled Reuben with a kind of horror. Whatever 
 words might have passed between them, never yet that 
 he could remember had his wife allowed herself a sneer 
 at his religion. It seemed to him suddenly as though 
 he and she were going fast downhill — slipping to 
 perdition, because of Sandy's six hundred pounds. 
 
 But she cowed him — she always did. She stayed a 
 moment in the same bent and threatening position, 
 coercing him with angry eyes. Then she straightened 
 herself, and moved away. 
 
 ' Let t' lad tak hisself off if he wants to,' she said, an 
 iron resolution in her voice. ' I told yo so afore — I 
 woan't cry for 'im. But as long as Louie's here, an 
 I ha to keep her, I'll want that money, an every 
 penny on't. If it bean't paid, she may go too ! ' 
 
 ^ Yo'd not turn her out, Hannah ? ' cried Reuben,
 
 184 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 instinctively putting out an arm to feel that the door 
 was closed. 
 
 ' 8he'di not want for a livin,' replied Hannah, with 
 a bitter sneer ; ' she's her mither's child.' 
 
 Eeuben rose slowly, shaking all over. He opened 
 the door with difficulty, groped his way out of the 
 front passage, then went heavily through the yard and 
 into the fields. There he wandered by himself for a 
 couple of hours, altogether forgetting some newly 
 dropped lambs to which he had been anxiously attend- 
 ing. For months past, ever since his conscience had 
 been roused on the subject of his brother's children, 
 the dull, incapable man had been slowly reconceiving 
 the woman with whom he had lived some five-and- 
 twenty years, and^of late the process had been attended 
 with a kind of agony. The Hannah Martin he had 
 married had been a hard body indeed, but respectable, 
 upright, with the same moral instincts as himself. She 
 had kept the farm together — he knew that ; he could 
 not have lived without her, and in all practical respects 
 she had been a good and industrious wife. He had 
 coveted her industry and her strong will ; and, having 
 got the use of them, he had learnt to put up with her 
 contempt for him, and to fit his softer nature to hers. 
 Yet it seemed to him that there had always been 
 certain conditions implied in this subjection of his, 
 and that she was breaking them. He could not have 
 been fetching and carrying all these years for a woman 
 who could go on wilfully ^appropriating money that
 
 CHILDHOOD 185 
 
 did not belong to her, — who could even speak with 
 callous indifference of the prospect of turning out her 
 niece to a life of sin. 
 
 He thought of Sandy's money with loathing. It was 
 like the cursed stuff" that Achan had brought into the 
 camp — an evil leaven fermenting in their common life, 
 and raising monstrous growths. 
 
 Eeuben Grieve did not demand much of himself; a 
 richer and more spiritual nature would have thought 
 his ideals lamentably poor. But, such as they were, the 
 past year had proved that he could not fall below them 
 without a dumb anguish, without a sense of shutting 
 himself out from grace. He felt himself — by his fear 
 of his wife — made a partner in Hannah's covetousness, 
 in Hannah's cruelty towards Sandy's children. Already, 
 it seemed to him, the face of Christ was darkened, the 
 fountain of grace dried up. All those appalling texts 
 of judgment and reprobation he had listened to so 
 often in chapel, protected against them by that warm 
 inward certainty of ' election,' seemed to be now pressing 
 against a bared and jeopardised soul. 
 
 But if he wrote to Mr. Gurney, Hannah would 
 never forgive him till her dying day ; and the thought 
 of making her his enemy for good put him in a cold 
 sweat. 
 
 After much pacing of the upper meadows he came 
 heavily down at last to see to his lambs. Davy was 
 just jumping the wall on to his uncle's land, having 
 apparently come down the Frimley path. When he
 
 1 86 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 saw his uncle he thrust his hands into his pockets, 
 began to whistle, and came on with a devil-may-care 
 swing of the figure. They met in a gateway between 
 two fields. 
 
 ' Whar yo been, Davy ? ' asked Reuben, looking at 
 him askance, and holding the gate so as to keep 
 him. 
 
 ' To Dawson's,' said the boy, sharply. 
 
 Reuben's face brightened. Then the lad's empty 
 stomach must have been filled ; for he knew that 
 ' Dawsons ' were kind to him. He ventured to look 
 at him more directly, and, as he did so, something in 
 the attitude of the proud handsome stripling reminded 
 him of Sandy — Sandy, in the days of his youth, coming 
 down to show his prosperous self at the farm. He put 
 his large soil-stained hand on David's shoulder. 
 
 ' Goo your ways in, Davy. I'll see yo ha your 
 reets.' 
 
 David opened his eyes at him, astounded. There is 
 nothing more startling in human relations than the 
 strong emotion of weak people. 
 
 Reuben would have liked to say something else, but 
 his lips opened and shut in vain. The boy, too, was 
 hopelessly embarrassed. At last, Reuben let the gate 
 fall and walked off, with downcast head, to where, in 
 the sheep-pen, he had a few hours before bound an 
 orphan lamb to a refractory foster-mother. The foster- 
 mother's resistance had broken down, she was lying 
 patiently and gently while the thin long-legged creature
 
 CHILDHOOD 187 
 
 sucked ; when it was friglitened away by Reuben's 
 approach she trotted bleating after it. In his disturbed 
 state of feeling the parallel, or rather the contrast, 
 between the durub animal and the woman struck 
 home.
 
 1 88 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 But the crisis which had looked so near delayed ! 
 
 Poor Reuben ! The morning after his sudden show 
 of spirit to David he felt himself, to his own miserable 
 surprise, no more courageous than he had been before 
 it. Yet the impression made had gone too deep to 
 end in nothingness. He contracted a habit of get- 
 ting by himself in the fields and puzzling his brain 
 with figures — an occupation so unfamiliar and exhaust- 
 ing that it wore him a good deal ; and Hannah, when 
 he came in at night, would wonder, with a start, whether 
 he were beginning ' to break up.' But it possessed him 
 more and more. Hannah would not give up the money, 
 but David must have his rights. How could it be 
 done ? For the first time Reuben fell to calculation 
 over his money matters, wbich he did not ask Hannah 
 to revise. But meanwhile he lived in a state of per- 
 petual inward excitement which did not escape his wife. 
 She could get no clue to it, however, and became all 
 the more forbidding in the household the more she 
 was invaded by this wholly novel sense of difficulty in 
 managing her husband. 
 
 Yet she was not without a sense that if she could
 
 CHILDHOOD 189 
 
 but contrive to alter her ways with the children it would 
 be well for her. Mr. Gurney's cheque was safely put 
 away in the Clough End bank, and clearly her best policy 
 would have been to make things tolerable for the two 
 persons on whose proceedings — if they did but know 
 it! — the arrival of future cheques in some measure 
 depended. But Hannah had not the cleverness which 
 makes the successful hypocrite. And for some time 
 past there had been a strange unmanageable change in 
 her feelings towards Sandy's orphans. Since Reuben 
 had made her conscious that she was robbing them, she 
 had gone nearer to an active hatred than ever before. 
 And, indeed, hatred in such a case is the most natural 
 outcome ; for it is little else than the soul's perverse 
 attempt to justify to itself its own evil desire. 
 
 David, however, when once his rage over Hannah's 
 latest offence had cooled, behaved to his aunt much as 
 he had done before it. He was made placable by his 
 secret hopes, and touched by Reuben's advances — 
 though of these last he took no practical account what- 
 ever; and he must wait for his letter. So he went 
 back ungraciously to his daily tasks. Meanwhile he 
 and Louie, on the strength of the great couj) in pro- 
 spect, were better friends than they had ever been, 
 and his consideration for her went up as he noticed 
 thnt, \\ lii'U she pleased, the reckless creature could keep 
 a secret ' as close as wax.' 
 
 The weeks, however, passed away, and still no letter 
 came for David. The shepherds' meetings — first at
 
 190 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 Clough End for the Cheshire side of the Scout, and 
 then at the ' Snake Inn ' for the ShefiSeld side — when the 
 strayed sheep of the year were restored to their owners, 
 came and went in due course ; sheep- washing and 
 sheep-shearing were over; the summer was halfway 
 through ; and still no word from Mr. Ancrum. 
 
 David, full of annoyance and disappointment, was 
 seething with fresh plans — he and Louie spent hours 
 discussing them at the Smithy — when suddenly an 
 experience overtook him, which for the moment effaced 
 all his nascent ambitions, and entirely did away with 
 Louie's new respect for him. 
 
 It was on this wise. 
 
 Mr. Ancrum had left Clough End towards the end of 
 June. The congregation to which he ministered, and 
 to which Heuben Grieve belonged, represented one of 
 those curious and independent developments of the 
 religious spirit which are to be found scattered through 
 the teeming towns and districts of northern England. 
 They had no connection with any recognised religious 
 community, but the members of it had belonged to 
 iiiany — to the Church, the Baptists, the Independents, 
 the Methodists. They were mostly mill-hands or small 
 tradesmen, penetrated on the one side with the fervour, 
 the yearnings, the strong formless poetry of English 
 evangelical faith, and repelled on the other by various 
 features in the different sects from which they came 
 — by the hierarchical strictness of the Wesleyan organi- 
 sation, or the looseness of the Congregationalists, or the
 
 CHILDHOOD 191 
 
 coldness of the Church. They had come together to 
 seek the Lord in some way more intimate, more moving, 
 more effectual than any they had yet found ; and in 
 this pathetic search for the ' rainbow gold ' of faith 
 they were perpetually brought up against the old 
 stumbling-blocks of the unregenerate man, — the smallest 
 egotisms, and the meanest vanities. Mr. Ancrum, for 
 instance, had come to the Clough End ' Brethren ' full of 
 an indescribable missionary zeal. He had laboured for 
 them night and day, taxing his sickly frame far beyond 
 its powers. But the most sordid conspiracy imaginable, 
 led by two or three of the prominent members who 
 thought he did not allow them enough share in the 
 evening meetings, had finally overthrown him, and he 
 had gone back to Manchester a bitterer and a sadder 
 man. 
 
 After he left there was an interregnum, during 
 which one or two of the elder ' Brethren ' taught Sunday 
 school and led the Sunday services. But at last, in 
 August, it became known in Clough End* that a new 
 minister for the ' Christian Brethren ' had come down, 
 and public curiosity in the Dissenting circles was keen 
 about him. After a few weeks there began to be a buzz 
 in the little town on the subject of Mr. Dyson. The 
 ' Christian Brethren ' meeting-room, a long low upper 
 chamber formerly occupied by half a dozen hand-looms, 
 was crowded on Sundays, morning and evening, not 
 only by the Brethren, but by migrants from other 
 denominations, and the Sunday school, which was held
 
 192 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 in a little rickety garret off the main room, also 
 received a large increase of members. It was rumoured 
 that Mr. Dyson was specially successful with boys, 
 and that there was an ' awakening ' among some of the 
 lowest and roughest of the Clough End lads. 
 
 ' He ha sich a way wi un,' said a much-stirred 
 mother to Reuben Grieve, meeting him one day in the 
 street, ' he do seem to melt your varra marrow.' 
 
 Reuben went to hear the new man, was much moved, 
 and came home talking about him with a stammering 
 unction, and many furtive looks at David. He had 
 tried to remonstrate several times on the lad's desertion 
 of chapel and Sunday school, but to no j)urpose. There 
 was something in David's half contemptuous, halt 
 obstinate silence on these occasions which for a man 
 like Reuben made argument impossible. To his morbid 
 inner sense the boy seemed to have entered irrecoverably 
 on the broad path which leadeth to destruction. Perhaps 
 in another year he would be drinking and thieving. 
 With a curious fatalism Reuben felt that for the present, 
 and till he had made some tangible amends to Sandy 
 and the Unseen Powers for Hannah's sin, he himself 
 could do nothing. His hands were unclean. But some 
 tremulous passing hopes he allowed himself to build on 
 this new prophet. 
 
 Meanwhile, David heard the town-talk, and took 
 small account of it. He supposed he should see the 
 new comer at Jerry's in time. Then if folk spoke true 
 there would be a shindy worth joining in. Meanwhile,
 
 CHILDHOOD 193 
 
 the pressure of his own affairs made the excitement of 
 the neighbourhood seem to him one more of those 
 storms in the Dissenting tea-cup, of which, boy as he 
 was, he had known a good many ah'eady. 
 
 One September evening he was walking down to 
 Clough End, bound to the reading-room. He had quite 
 ceased to attend the ' Crooked Cow,' His pennies were 
 precious to him now, and he saved them jealously, 
 wondering scornfully sometimes how he could ever have 
 demeaned himself so far as to find excitement in the 
 liquor or the company of the ' Cow.' Halfway down 
 to the town, as he was passing the foundry, whence he 
 had drawn the pan which had for so long made the 
 Smithy enchanted ground to him, the big slouching 
 apprentice who had been his quondam friend and ally 
 there, came out of the foundry yard just in front of him. 
 David quickened up a little. 
 
 ' Tom, whar are yo goin ? ' 
 
 The other looked round at him uneasily. 
 
 ' Niver yo mind.' 
 
 The youth's uncouth clothes were carefully brushed, 
 and his fat face, which wore an incongruous expression 
 of anxiety and dejection, shone with washing. David 
 studied him a moment in silence, then he said 
 abruptly — 
 
 ' Yo're goin prayer-meetin, that's what yo are,' 
 
 ' An if I am, it's noa consarn o' yourn. Yo're 
 yan o' tli' unregenerate ; an I'll ask yo, Davy, if 
 happen yo're goin town way, not to talk ony o' your 
 
 VOL. I. o
 
 194 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 carnal talk to me. I'se got hindrances enough, t' Lord 
 knows.' 
 
 And the lad went his way, morosely hanging his 
 head, and stepping more rapidly as though to get rid 
 of his companion. 
 
 ' Well, I niver ! ' exclaimed David, in his astonish'- 
 ment. ' What's wrong wi yo, Tom ? Yo've got no 
 more spunk nor a moultin hen. What's getten hold o' 
 yo?' 
 
 Tom hesitated a moment. ' TK Lord ! ' he burst 
 out at last, looking at Davy with that sudden uncon- 
 scious dignity which strong feeling can bestow for the 
 moment on the meanest of mortals. ' He's a harryin' 
 me ! I havn't slep this three neets for shoutin an 
 cryin! It's th' conviction o' sm, Davy. Th' devil 
 seems a howdin me, an I conno pull away, not what- 
 iver. T' new minister says, '• Dunnot 3^0 pull. Let 
 Jesus do 't all. He's Strang, He is. Yo're nobbut a 
 worm." But I've naw assurance, Davy, theer's whar it 
 ig — XVe naw assurance ! ' he rej)eated, forgetting in his 
 pain the unregenerate mind of his companion. 
 
 David walked on beside him wondering. When he 
 had last seen Tom he was lounging in a half-drunken 
 condition outside the door of the ' Crooked Cow,' 
 cracking tipsy jokes with the passers-by. 
 
 ' Where is the prayer-meetin ? ' he inquired 
 presently. 
 
 'In owd Simes'e shed-— an it's late too — I mun 
 hurry.'
 
 CHILDHOOD 195 
 
 ' Why, theer'll be plenty o' room in old Simes's 
 shed. It's a fearfu big place.' 
 
 ' An lasst time theer was na stannin ground for a 
 corn-boggart ; an I wudna miss ony o' Mr. Dyson's 
 prayin, not for nothin. Good neet to yo, Davy.' 
 
 And Tom broke into a run ; David, however, kept 
 up with him. 
 
 ' P'raps I'll coom too,' he said, with a kind of 
 bravado, when they had passed the bridge and the 
 Kinder printing works, and Clough End was in sight. 
 
 Tom said nothing till they had breasted a hill, at 
 the top of which he paused panting, and confronted 
 David. 
 
 ' Noo yo'll not mak a rumpus, Davy,' he said mis- 
 trustfully. 
 
 ' An if I do, can't a hunderd or two o' yo kick 
 me out ? ' asked David, mockingly. ' I'll mak no 
 rumpus. P'raps your Mr. Dyson '11 convert me.' 
 
 And he walked on laughing. 
 
 Tom looked darkly at him ; then, as he recovered 
 his wind, his countenance suddenly cleared. Satan laid 
 a new snare for him — poor Tom ! — and into his tortured 
 heart there fell a poisonous drop of spiritual pride. 
 Public reprobation applied to a certain order of 
 offences makes a very marketable kind of fame, as the 
 author of Manfred knew very well. David in his small 
 obscure way was supplying another illustration of the 
 principle. For the past year he had been something of 
 a personage in Clough End — having always his wits, his 
 
 o 2
 
 196 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 book-learning, his looks, and his singular parentage to 
 start from. Tom — the shambling butt of his comrades 
 — began to like the notion of going into prayer- 
 meeting with David Grieve in tow ; and even that 
 bitter and very real cloud of spiritual misery lifted a 
 little. 
 
 So they marched in together, Tom in front, with his 
 head much higher than before ; and till the minister 
 began there were many curious glances thrown at 
 David. It was a prayer-meeting for boys only, and 
 the place was crammed with them, of all ages up to 
 eighteen. 
 
 It was a carpenter's workshop. Tools and timber 
 had been as far as possible pushed to the side, and at 
 the end a rough platform of loose planks had been laid 
 across some logs so as to raise the preacher a little? 
 
 Soon there was a stir, and Mr. Dyson appeared. 
 He was tall and loosely built, with the stoop from the 
 neck and the sallow skin which the position of the 
 cotton-spinner at work and the close fluffy atmosphere 
 in which he lives tend to develop. Up to six months 
 ago, he had been a mill-hand and a Wesleyan class- 
 leader. Now, in consequence partly of some inward 
 crisis, partly of revolt against an ' unspiritual ' superin- 
 tendent, he had thrown up mill and Methodism to- 
 gether, and come to live on the doles of the Christian 
 Brethren at Clough End. He had been preaching on the 
 moors already during the day, and was tired out ; but 
 the pallor of the harsh face only made the bright, com-
 
 CHILDHOOD 197 
 
 manding eye more noticeable. It ran over the room, 
 took note first of the numbers, then of individuals, 
 marked who had been there before, who was a new- 
 comer. The audience fell into order and quiet before 
 it as though a general had taken command. 
 
 He put his hands on his hips and began to speak 
 without any preface, somewhat to the boys' surprise, 
 who had expected a prayer. The voice, as generally 
 happens with a successful revivalist preacher, was of 
 fine quality, and rich in good South Lancashire intona- 
 tions, and his manner was simplicity itself. 
 
 ' Suppose we put off our prayer a little bit,' he 
 said, in a colloquial tone, his fixed look studying the 
 crowded benches all the while. ' Perhaps we'll have more 
 to pray about by-and-by. . . . Well, now, I haven't 
 been long in Clough End, to be sure, but I think I've beeo 
 long enough to get some notion of how you boys here 
 live — whether you work on the land, or whether you 
 work in the mills or in shops — I've been watching you 
 a bit, perhaps you didn't think it ; and what I'm going 
 to do to-night is to take your lives to pieces — take 
 them to pieces, an look close into them, as you've seen 
 them do at the mill, perhaps, with a machine that 
 wants cleaning. I want to find out what's wrong wi 
 them, what they're good for, whose work they do — GodCs 
 or the devil's. . . . First let me take the mill-hands. 
 Perhaps I know most about their life, for I went to 
 work in a cotton-mill when I was eight years old, and 
 I only left it six months ago. I have seen men and
 
 198 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 womeu saved in that mill, so that their whole life after- 
 wards was a kind of ecstasy : I have seen others lost 
 there, so that they became true children of the devil, 
 and made those about them as vile and wretched as 
 themselves. I have seen men grow rich there, and I 
 have seen men die there ; so if there is anything I know 
 in this world it is how factory workers spend their 
 time — at least, 1 think I know. But judge for your- 
 selves — shout to me if I'm wrong. Isn't it somehow 
 like this ? ' 
 
 And he fell into a description of the mill-hand's 
 working day. It was done with knowledge, sometimes 
 with humour, and through it all ran a curious under- 
 current of half-ironical passion. The audience enjoyed 
 it, took the points, broke in now and then with com- 
 ments as the speaker touched on such burning matters 
 as the tyranny of overlookers, the temper of masters, 
 the rubs between the different classes of ' hands,' the 
 behaviour of ' minders ' to the ' piecers ' employed by 
 them, and so on. The sermon at one time was more 
 like a dialogue between preacher and congregation. 
 David found himself joining in it involuntarily once or 
 twice, so stimulating was the whole atmosphere, and 
 Mr. Dyson's eye was caught perforce by the tall dark 
 fellow with the defiant carriage of the head who sat 
 next to Tom Mullins, and whom he did not remember 
 to have seen before. 
 
 But suddenly the preacher stopped, and the room 
 fell dead silent, startled by the darkening of his look.
 
 CHILDHOOD 199 
 
 ' Ay,' he said, with stern sharpness. ' Ay, that's how 
 you live — them's the things you spend your time and 
 your minds on. You laugh, and I laugh — not a bad 
 sort of life, you think — a good deal of pleasure, after 
 all, to be got out of it. If a man must work he might 
 do worse. you poor souls ! ' 
 
 The speaker stopped, as though mastering himself. 
 His face worked with emotion ; his last words had been 
 almost a cry of pain. After the easy give and take of 
 the opening, this change was electrical. David felt 
 his hand tremble on his knee. 
 
 ' Answer me this ! ' cried the preacher, his nervous 
 cotton-spinner's hand outstretched. ' Is there any soul 
 here among you factory lads who, when he wakes in 
 the morning, ever thhiks of saijinr/ a prat/er ? Not one 
 of you, I'll be bound ! What with shovelling on one's 
 clothes, and gulping down one's breakfast, and walking 
 half a mile to the mill, who's got time to think about 
 prayers ? God must wait. He's always there above, 
 you think, sitting in glory. He can listen any time. 
 Well, as you stand at your work — all those hours ! — 
 is there ever a moment then for putting up a word 
 in Jesus' ear — Jesus, Who died for sinners? Why, 
 no, how should there be indeed ? If you don't keep a 
 sharp eye on your work the overlooker 'ull know the 
 reason why in double-quick time ! . . . But there comes 
 a break, perhaps, for one reason or another. Does the 
 Lord get it ? What a thing to ask, to be sure ! Why, 
 there are other spitmers close by, waiting for rovings,
 
 200 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 or leaving off for " baggin," and a bit of talk and a 
 bad word or two are a deal more fun, and come 
 easier than praying. Half-past five o'clock at last — 
 knocking-off time. Then you begin to think of 
 amusing 3'ourselves. There's loafing about the streets, 
 which never comes amiss, and there's smoking and the 
 public for you bigger ones, and there's betting on 
 Manchester races, and there's a bout of swearing every 
 now and then to keep up your spirits, and there are 
 other thoughts, and perhaps actions, for some of you, 
 of which the less said in any decent Christian gathering 
 the better ! And so bedtime comes round again ; still 
 not a moment to think of God in — of the Judgment 
 which has come a day closer — of your sins which have 
 grown a day heavier — of your soul which has sunk a day 
 further from heaven, a day nearer to hell ? Not one. 
 You are dead tired, and mill-work begins so early. 
 Tumble in — God can wait. He has w^aited fourteen, or 
 eighteen, or twenty years already ! 
 
 ' But you're not all factory hands here. I see a 
 good many lads I know come from the country — from 
 the farms up Kinder or Edale way. Well, I don't 
 know so much about your ways as I do about mills ; 
 but I know some, and I can guess some. You are not 
 shut up all day with the roar of the machines in your 
 ears, and the cotton-fluff choking your lungs. You 
 have to live harder, perhaps. You've less chances of 
 getting on in the world ; but I declare to you, if you're 
 bad and godless — as some of you are — I think there's
 
 CHILDHOOD 20 1 
 
 a precious sight less excuse for you than there is for 
 the mill-hands ! ' 
 
 And with a startling vehemence, greater by far than 
 he had shown in the case of the mill-workers, he threw 
 himself on the vices and the callousness of the field- 
 labourers. For were they not, day by day, and hour by 
 hour, face to face with the Almighty in His marvellous 
 world — with the rising of His sun, with the flash of His 
 lightning, with His clouds which dropped fatness, and 
 with the heavens which declare His glory ? Nothing 
 between them and the Most High, if they would open 
 their dull eyes and see! And more than that, Xot a 
 bit of their life, but had been dear to the Lord Jesus — 
 but He had spoken of it, taught from it, made it 
 sacred. The shepherd herding the sheep — how could 
 he, of all men, forget and blaspheme the Good Shep- 
 herd? The sower scattering the seed — how could he, 
 of all men, forget and blaspheme the Heavenly Sower ? 
 Oh, the crookedness of sin ! Oh, the hardness of men's 
 hearts ! 
 
 The secret of the denunciations which followed lay 
 hidden deep in the speaker's personal history. They 
 were the utterances of a man who had stood for years at 
 the * mules,' catching, when he could, through the coarse 
 panes of factory glass, the dim blue outlines of distant 
 moors. Here were noise, crowd, coarse jesting, mean 
 tyrannies, uncongenial company — everything which a 
 nervous, excitable nature, tuned to poetry in the English 
 way through religion, most loathed ; iliere was beauty,
 
 202 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 peace, leisure for thought, for holiness, for emo- 
 tion. 
 
 Meanwhile the mind of David Grieve rose once or 
 twice in angry protest. It was not fair — it was unjust 
 —and why did Mr. Dyson always seem to be looking 
 at him ? — flinging at him all these scathing words about 
 farming people's sins and follies ? He was shaken and 
 excited. Oratory, of any sort, never failed to stir him 
 extraordinarily. Once even he would have jumped up 
 to speak, but Tom Mullins's watchful hand closed on his 
 arm. Davy shook it off angrily, but was perforce re- 
 minded of his promise. And Mr. Dyson was swift in 
 all things. The pitiless sentences dropped ; the speaker, 
 exhausted, wiped his brow and pondered a moment; 
 and the lads from the farms about, most of whom David 
 knew by sight, were left staring at the floor, some 
 inclined to laugh by reaction, others crimson and 
 miserable. 
 
 Well ; so God was everywhere forgotten — in the 
 fields and in the mill. The greedy, vicious hours went 
 by, and God still waited — waited. Would He wait 
 for ever ? 
 
 ' Nay I ' 
 
 The intense, low-spoken word sent a shiver through 
 the room. The revivalist passion had been mounting 
 rapidly amongst the listeners, and the revivalist sense 
 divined what was coming. To his dj^ing day David, at 
 least, never forgot the picture of a sinner's death agony, 
 a sinner's doom, which followed. As to the first, it was
 
 CHILDHOOD 203 
 
 very quiet and colloquial. The preacher dwelt on the 
 tortured body, the choking breath, the failing sight, the 
 talk of relations and friends round the bed. 
 
 * " Ay, poor fellow, he'll not lasst mich longer ; t' 
 doctor's gien him up — and a good thing too, for his 
 sufferins are terr'ble to see/" 
 
 ' And your poor dying ears will catch what they say. 
 Then will your fear come upon you as a storm, and your 
 calamity as a whirlwind. Such a fear ! 
 
 ' Once, my lads — long ago — I saw a poor girl caught 
 by her hair in one of the roving machines in the mill 
 I used to work at. Three minutes afterwards they tore 
 away her body from the iron teeth which had destroyed 
 her. But I, a lad of twelve, had seen her face just as 
 the thing caught her, and if I live to be a hundred I 
 shall never forget that face — that horrible, horrible 
 fear convulsing it. 
 
 ' But that fear, my boys, was as nothing to the 
 sinner's fear at death ! Only a few more hours — a few 
 more minutes, perhaps — and i\\en judgment \ All the 
 pleasant loafing and lounging, all the eating and drink- 
 ing, the betting and swearing, the warm sun, the kind 
 light, the indulgent parents and friends left behind ; 
 nothing for ever and ever but the torments which 
 belong to sin, and which even the living God can no 
 more spare you and me if we die in sin than the mill- 
 engine, once set going, can spare the poor creature that 
 meddles with it. 
 
 ' Well ; but perhaps in that awful last hour you tiy
 
 204 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 to pray — to call on the Saviour. But, alas ! alas ! 
 prayer and faitli have to be learnt, like cotton-spinning. 
 Let no man count on learning that lesson for the 
 asking. While your body has been enjoying itself in 
 sin, your soul has been dying — dying; and when at 
 the last you bid it rise and go to the Father, you will 
 find it just as helpless as your poor paralysed limbs. 
 It cannot rise, it has no strength ; it cannot go, for 
 it knows not the way. No hope ; no hope. Down it 
 sinks, and the black waters of hell close upon it for 
 
 ever 
 
 Then followed a sort of vision of the lost — delivered 
 in short abrupt sentences — the form of the speaker drawn 
 rigidly up meanwhile to its full height, the long arm 
 outstretched. The utterance had very little of the lurid 
 materialism, the grotesque horror of the ordinary 
 ranter's hell. But it stole upon the imagination little 
 by little, and possessed it at last with an all-pervading 
 terror. Into it, to begin with, had gone the whole 
 life-blood and passion of an agonised soul. The man 
 speaking had himself graven the terrors of it on his 
 inmost nature through many a week of demoniacal pos- 
 session. But since that original experience of fire 
 which gave it birth, there had come to its elaboration a 
 strange artistic instinct. Day after day the preacher 
 had repeated it to hushed congregations, and with every 
 repetition, ahnost, there had come a greater sharpening 
 of the light and shade, a keener sense of what would 
 tell and move. He had friven it on the moors that
 
 CHILDHOOD 205 
 
 afternoon, but lie gave it better to-night, for on the 
 wild walk across the plateau of the Peak some fresh 
 illustrations, drawn from its black and fissured solitude, 
 had suggested themselves, and he worked them out as 
 he went, with a kind of joy, watching their effect. Yet 
 the man was, in his way, a saint, and altogether 
 sincere — so subtle a thing is the life of the spirit. 
 
 In the middle, Tom MuUins, David's apprentice- 
 friend, suddenly broke out into loud groans, rocking 
 himself to and fro on the form. A little later, a small 
 fair-haired boy of twelve sprang up from the form 
 where he had been sitting trembling, and rushed into 
 the space between the benches and the preacher, quite 
 unconscious of what he was doing. 
 
 ' Sir ! ' he said ; ' oh, sir ! — please — I didn't want 
 to say them bad words this mornin ; I didn't, sir ; it 
 wcr t' big uns made me ; they said they'd duck me — an 
 it do hurt that bad. Oh, sir, please ! ' 
 
 And the little fellow stood wringing his hands, the 
 tears coursing down his cheeks. 
 
 The minister stopped, frowning, and looked at him. 
 Then a smile broke on the set face, he stepped up to 
 the lad, threw his arm round him, and drew him up to 
 his side fronting the room. 
 
 ' My boy,' he said, looking down at him tenderly, 
 ^ you and I, thank God, are still in the land of the liviaq ; 
 there is still time to-night — this very minute — to be 
 saved ! Ay, saved, for ever and ever, by the blood ot 
 the Lamb. Look away from yourselves — awav from sin
 
 2o6 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 — away from hell — to the blessed Lord, that suffered 
 and died and rose again; just for what? For this 
 only — that He might, with His own pierced hands, draw 
 every soul here to-night, and every soul in the wide 
 world that will but hear His voice, out of the clutches 
 of the devil, and out of the pains of hell, and gather it 
 close and safe into His everlasting arms ! ' 
 
 There was a great sob from the whole room. 
 Rough lads from the upland farms, shop-boys, mill- 
 hands, strained forward, listening, thirsting, responding 
 to every word. 
 
 Redemjytion — Salvation — the deliverance of the soul 
 from itself — thither all religion comes at last, whether 
 for the ranter or the philosopher. To the enriching 
 of that conception, to the gradual hewiug it out in 
 historical shape, have gone the noblest poetry, the 
 purest passion, the intensest spiritual vision of the 
 highest races, since the human mind began to work. 
 And the historical shape may crumble ; but the need 
 will last and the travail will go on ; for man's quest of 
 redemption is but the eternal yielding of the clay in 
 the hands of the potter, the eternal answer of the 
 creature to the urging indwelling Creator.
 
 CHILDHOOD 207 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 Half an hour later, after the stormy praying and sing- 
 ing which had succeeded Mr. Dyson's address, David 
 found himself tramping up the rough and lonely road 
 leading to the high Kinder valley. The lights of Clough 
 End had disappeared ; against the night sky the dark 
 woody side of Mardale Moor was still visible ; beneath 
 it sang the river ; a few stars were to be seen ; and 
 every now and then the windows of a farm shone out to 
 guide the wayfarer. But David stumbled on, noticing 
 nothing. At the foot of the steep hill leading to the 
 farm he stopped a moment, and leant over the gate. 
 The little lad's cry was in his ears. 
 
 Presently he leapt the gate impatiently, and ran up 
 whistling. Supper was over, but Hannah ungraciouslv 
 brought him out some cold bacon and bread. Louie 
 hung about him while he ate, studying him with quick 
 furtive eyes. 
 
 ' Whar yo bin ? ' she said abruptly, when Hannah 
 had gone to the back kitchen for a moment. Reuben 
 was dozing by the fire over the local paj^er. 
 
 ' Nowhere as concerns you,' said David, shortly. He
 
 2o8 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 finished his supper and went and sat on the steps. The 
 dogs came and put their noses on his knees. He 
 pulled absently at their coats, looking straight before 
 him at the dark point of Kinder Low. 
 
 ' Whar yo bin ? ' said Louie's voice again in his 
 ear. She had squatted down on the step behind him. 
 
 ' Be off wi yer,' said David, angrily, getting up in 
 order to escape her. 
 
 But she pursued him across the farmyard. 
 
 ^ Have yo got a letter ? ' 
 
 ' No, I havn't.' 
 
 '■ Did yo ask at t' post-office ? ' 
 
 ' No, I didn't.' 
 
 ' An why didn't yo ? ' 
 
 ' Because I didn't want — soa there — get away.' 
 And he stalked off. Louie, left behind, chewed the cud 
 of reflection in the darkness. 
 
 Presently, to his great disgust, as he was sitting 
 under a wall of one of the pasture-fields, hidden, as he 
 conceived, from all the world by the night, he heard the 
 rustle of a dress, the click of a stone, and there was 
 Louie dangling her legs above him, having attacked him 
 in the rear. 
 
 ' Uncle Reuben's talkin 'is stuff about Mr. Dyson. 
 I seed 'im gooin passt Wigsons' this afternoon. He's 
 nowt — he's common, he is.' 
 
 The thin scornful voice out of the dark grated on 
 him intolerably. He bent forward and shut his. ears 
 tio-ht with both his hands. To judge from the muffled
 
 CHILDHOOD 209 
 
 sounds he heard, Louie went on talking for a while ; 
 but at last there had been silence for so long, that 
 he took his hands away, thinking she must have 
 gone. 
 
 ^ YoVe been at t' prayer-meetin, I tell yo, an 
 yo're a great stupid muffin-yed, soa theer.' 
 
 And a peremptory little kick on his shoulder from 
 a substantial shoe gave the words point. 
 
 He sprang up in a rage, ran down the hill, jumped 
 over a wall or two, and got rid of her. But he seemed 
 to hear her elfish laugh for some time after. As 
 for himself, he could not analyse what had come over 
 him. But not even the attraction of an unopened 
 parcel of books he had carried home that afternoon 
 from Clough End — a loan from a young stationer he had 
 lately made acquaintance with — could draw him back to 
 the farm. He sat on and on in the dark. And when 
 at last, roused by the distant sounds of shutting up the 
 house, lie slunk in and up to bed, he tossed about for 
 a long time, and woke up often in the night. The 
 tyrannous power of another man's faith was upon him . 
 He could not get Mr. Dyson out of his head. How 
 on earth could anybody be so certain ? It was monstrous 
 that any one should be. It was canting stuff. 
 
 Still, next day, hearing by chance that the new comer 
 was going to preach at a hamlet the other side of Clough 
 End, he went, found a large mixed meeting mostly of 
 mill-hands, and the tide of Revivalism rolling high. 
 This time Mr. Dyson picked him out at once — the 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 2IO THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 face and head indeed were easily remembered. After 
 the sermon, when the congregation were filing out, 
 leaving behind those more particularly distressed in 
 mind to be dealt with more intimately in a small 
 prayer-meeting by Mr. Dyson and a prayer-leader, the 
 minister suddenly stepped aside from a group of people 
 he was talking with, and touched David on the arm as 
 he was making for the door. 
 
 '- Won't you stay ? ' he said peremptorily. ' Don't 
 trifle with the Lord.' 
 
 And his feverish divining eyes seemed to look the 
 boy through and through. David flushed, and pushed 
 past him with some inarticulate answer. When he 
 found himself in the open air he was half angry, half 
 shaken with emotion. And afterwards a curious in- 
 stinct, the sullen instinct of the wild creature shrinking 
 from a possible captor, made him keep himself as much 
 as possible out of Mr. Dyson's way. At the prayer- 
 meetings and addresses, which followed each other 
 during the next fortnight in quick succession, David 
 was almost always present ; but he stood at the back, 
 and as soon as the general function was over he fled. 
 The preacher's strong will was piqued. He began to 
 covet the boy's submission disproportionately, and laid 
 schemes for meeting with him. But David evaded 
 them all. 
 
 Other persons, however, succeeded better. When- 
 ever the revivalist fever attacks a community, it excites 
 in a certain number of individuals, especially women.
 
 CHILDHOOD 211 
 
 an indescribable zeal for proselytising. The signs of 
 ' conviction ' in any hitherto unregenerate soul are 
 . marked at once, and the ' saved ' make a prey of it, 
 showing a marvellous cunning and persistence in its 
 pursuit. 
 
 One day a woman, the wife of a Clough End shoe- 
 maker, slightly known to David, met him on the moors. 
 
 ' Will yo coom to-night ? ' she said, nodding to 
 him. ' Theer'll be prayin' at our house — about half a 
 dozen.' 
 
 Then, as the boy stopped, amazed and hesitating, 
 she fixed him with her shining ecstatic eyes. 
 
 ^ Awake, thou that sleepest,' she said under her 
 breath, ' and Christ shall give thee light.' 
 
 She had been carrying a bundle to a distant farm. 
 A child was in her arms, and she looked dragged and 
 worn. But all the way down the moor as she came 
 towards him David had heard her singing hymns. 
 
 He hung his head and passed on. But in the even- 
 ing he went, found three or four other boys his own age 
 or older, the woman, and her husband. The woman 
 sang some of the most passionate Methodist hymns; 
 the husband, a young shoemaker, already half dead 
 of asthma and bronchitis, told his ' experiences ' in a 
 voice broken by incessant coughing ; one of the boys, 
 a rough specimen, known to David as a van-boy from 
 some calico-printing works in the neighbourhood, 
 prayed aloud, breaking down into sobs in the middle ; 
 and David, at first obstinately silent, found himself 
 
 p 2
 
 212 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 joining before tlie end in the groans and ' Aniens,' by 
 force of a contagious excitement he half despised but 
 could not withstand. 
 
 The little prayer-meeting, however, broke up some- 
 what in confusion. There was not much real difference 
 of opinion at this time in Clough End, which was, on 
 the whole, a strongly religious town. Even the Church- 
 manship of it was decidedly evangelical, ready at any 
 moment to make common cause with Dissent against 
 Ritualism, if such a calamity should ever threaten the 
 little community, and very ready to join, more or less 
 furtively, in the excitements of Dissenting revivals. 
 Jerry Timmins and his set represented the only serious 
 blot on what the pious Clough Endian might reason- 
 ably regard as a fair picture. But this set contained 
 some sharp fellows — provided outlet for a considerable 
 amount of energy of a raw and roving sort, and, no 
 doubt, did more to maintain the mental equilibrium of 
 the small factory-town than any enthusiast on the other 
 side would for a moment have allowed. The excite- 
 ment which followed in the train of a man like Mr. 
 Dyson roused, of course, an answering hubbub among 
 the Timminsites. The whole of Jerry's circle was 
 stirred up, in fact, like a hive of wasps ; their ribaldry 
 grew with what it fed on ; and every day some new 
 and exquisite method of harrying the devout occurred 
 to the more ingenious among them. 
 
 David had hitherto escaped notice. But on this even- 
 ing, while he and his half-dozen companions were still
 
 CHILDHOOD 213 
 
 on their knees, they were first disturbed by loud drum- 
 mings on the shoemaker s door, which opened directly 
 into the little room where they were congregated ; and 
 then, when they emerged into the street, they found a 
 mock prayer-meeting going on outside, with all the 
 usual ' manifestations ' of revivalist fervour — sighs, 
 groans, shouts, and the rest of it — in full flow. At the 
 sight of David Grieve there were first stares and then 
 shrieks of laughter. 
 
 ' I say, Davy,' cried a drunken young weaver, sidling 
 up to him on his knees and embracing him from behind, 
 ' my heart's real touched. Gie me your coat, Davy ; it's 
 better nor mine, Davy ; and I'm your Christian brother, 
 Davy.' 
 
 The emotion of this appeal drew uproarious merri- 
 ment from the knot of Secularists. David, in a frenzy, 
 kicked out, so that his assailant dropped him with a 
 howl. The weaver's friends closed upon the ' Ranters,' 
 who had to fight their way through. It was not till 
 they had gained the outskirts of the town that the 
 shower of stones ceased, and that they could pause to 
 take stock of their losses. Then it appeared that, 
 though all were bruised, torn, and furious, some were 
 inclined to take a mystical joy in persecution, and to 
 find compensation in certain plain and definite predic- 
 tions as to the eternal fate in store for ' Jerry Timmins's 
 divils.' David, on the other hand, was much more 
 inclined to vent his wrath on his own side than on the 
 Timminsites.
 
 214 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 ' Why can't yo keep what yo're doin to yoursels ? ' 
 he called out fiercely to the knot of panting boys, as 
 he faced round upon them at the gate leading to the 
 Kinder road. ' Yo're a parcel o' fools — always chat- 
 terin an clatterin.' 
 
 The others defended themselves warmly. ' Them 
 Timmins lot ' were always spying about. They daren't 
 attack the large meetings, but they had a diabolical 
 way of scenting out the small ones. The meetings at 
 the shoemaker's had been undisturbed for some few 
 nights, then a Timminsite passing by had heard hymns, 
 probably listened at the keyhole, and of course informed 
 the main body of the enemy. 
 
 ' They're like them nassty earwigs,' said one boy in 
 disgust, ' they'll wriggle in onywheres.' 
 
 ' Howd yor noise ! ' said David, peremptorily. ' If 
 yo wanted to keep, out o' their way, yo could do 't fasst 
 enough.' 
 
 ' How ? ' they inquired, with equal curtness. 
 
 ' Yo needn't meet in th' town at aw. Theer's 
 plenty o' places up on t' moor,' and he waved his hand 
 towards the hills behind him, lying clear in the autumn 
 moonlight. ' Theer's th' owd Smithy — who'd find yo 
 there ? ' 
 
 The mention of the Smithy was received as an 
 inspiration. There is a great deal of pure romantic 
 temper roused by these revivalist outbreaks in pro- 
 vincial England. The idea of the moors and the old 
 rain as setting for a secret prayer-meeting struck
 
 CHILDHOOD 215 
 
 the group of excited lads as singularly attractive. 
 They parted cheerfully upon it, in spite of their 
 bruises. 
 
 David, however, walked home fuming. The self- 
 abandonment of the revival had been all along well- 
 nigh intolerable to him — and now, that he should have 
 allowed the Timminsites to know anything about his 
 prayers ! He very nearly broke off from it altogether 
 in his proud disgust. 
 
 However he did ultimately nothing of the sort. As 
 soon as he grew cool again, he was as much tormented 
 as before by what was at bottom more an intellectual 
 curiosity than a moral anguish. There was some moral 
 awakening in it ; he had some real qualms about sin, 
 some real aspirations after holiness, and, so far, the self- 
 consciousness which had first stirred at Haworth was 
 deepened and fertilised. But the thirst for emotion 
 and sensation was the main force at work. He could 
 not make out what these religious people meant by 
 their ' experiences,' and for the first time he wanted 
 to make out. So when it was proposed to him to meet 
 at the Smithy on a certain Saturday evening, he agreed. 
 
 Meanwhile, Louie was sitting up in bed every night, 
 with her hands round her sharp knees, and her black 
 brows knit over David's follies. It seemed to her he 
 no longer cared ' a haporth ' about getting a letter from 
 Mr. Ancrum, about going to Manchester, about all 
 those entrancing anti-meat schemes which were to lead 
 so easily to a paradise of free ' buying ' for both of
 
 2i6 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 them. Whenever she tried to call him back to these 
 things he shook her off impatiently, and their new- 
 born congeniality to each other had been all swamped 
 in this craze for ' shoutin hollerin ' people she despised 
 with all her heart. When she flew out at him, he just 
 avoided her. Indeed, he avoided her now at all times, 
 whether she flew out or not. There was an invincible 
 heathenism about Louie, which made her the natural 
 enemy of any ' awakened ' person. 
 
 The relation of the elders in the farm to the new 
 development in David was a curious one. Hannah 
 viewed it with a secret satisfaction. Christians have 
 less time than other people — such, at least, had been her 
 experience with Reuben — to spend in thirsting for the 
 goods of this world. The more David went to prayer- 
 meetings, the less likely was he to make inadmissible 
 demands on what belonged to him. As for poor 
 Reuben , he seemed to have got his wish ; while he and 
 Hannah had been doing their best to drive Sandy's son 
 to perdition through a downward course of ' loafing,' 
 God had sent Mr. Dyson to put Davy back on the 
 right road. But he was ill at ease ; he watched the 
 excitement, which all the lad's prickly reticence could 
 not hide from those about him, with strange and 
 variable feelings. As a Christian, he should have re- 
 joiced ; instead, the uncle and nephew shunned each 
 other more than ever, and shunned especially all talk 
 of the revival. Perhaps the whole situation — the 
 influence of the new man, of the local talk, of the
 
 CHILDHOOD 217 
 
 quickened spii'itual life around him, did but aggravate 
 tlie inner strain in Reuben. Perhaps his wife's satis- 
 faction, which his sharpened conscience perceived and 
 understood, troubled him intolerably. At any rate, his 
 silence and disquiet gi^ew, and his only pleasure lay, 
 more than ever, in those solitary cogitations we have 
 already spoken of. 
 
 The 15th of October approached — as it happened, 
 the Friday before the Smithy prayer-meeting. On that 
 day of the year, according to ancient and invariable 
 custom, the Yorkshire stock — steers, heifers, young 
 horses — which are transfeiTed to the Derbyshire 
 farms on the 15th of May, are driven back to their 
 Yorkshire owners, with all the fatness of Derbyshire 
 pastures showing on their sleek sides. Breeders and 
 farmers meet again at Woodhead, just within the York- 
 shire border. The animals are handed over to their 
 owners, paid for at so much a head, and any preven- 
 tive damage or loss occurring among them is reckoned 
 against the farmer returning them, according to certain 
 local rules. 
 
 As the middle of the month came nearer, Reuben 
 began to talk despondently to Hannah of bis probable 
 gains from his Yorkshire ' boarders.' It had been a 
 cold wet summer ; he was ' feart ' the owners would 
 think he might have taken more care of some of the 
 animals, especially of the young horses, and he men- 
 tioned certain ailments springing from damp and 
 exposure for which he might be held responsible.
 
 2i8 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 Hannah grew irritated and anxious. The receipts from 
 this source were the largest they could reckon upon in 
 the year. But the fields on which the Yorkshire 
 animals pastured were at some distance from the house ; 
 this department of the farm business was always left 
 wholly to Reuben ; and, with much grumbling and 
 scolding, she took his word for it as to the probable 
 lowness of the sum he should bring back. 
 
 David, meanwhile, was sometimes a good deal 
 puzzled by Reuben's behaviour. It seemed to him 
 that his uncle told some queer tales at home about 
 their summer stock. And when Reuben announced 
 his intention of going by himself to Woodhead, and 
 leaving David at home, the boy was still more as- 
 tonished. 
 
 However, he was glad enough to be spared the 
 tramp with a set of people whose ways and talk were 
 more and more uncongenial to him ; and after his 
 uncle's departure he lay for hours hidden from Louie 
 among the heather, sometimes arguing out imaginary 
 arguments with Mr. Dyson, sometimes going through 
 passing thrills of emotion and fear. What was meant, 
 he wanted to know, by ' tlie sense of loardon ' ? Person 
 after person at the prayer-meetings he had been fre- 
 quenting had spoken of attaining it with ecstasy, or of 
 being still shut out from it with anguish. But how, 
 after all, did it differ from pardoning yourself? You 
 had only, it seemed to him, to think very hard that you 
 were pardoned, and the feeling came. How could any-
 
 CHILDHOOD 219 
 
 body tell it was more than that ? David racked his braiii 
 endlessly over the same subject. Who could be sure 
 that ^ experience ' was not all moonshine ? But he was 
 as yet much too touched and shaken by what he had 
 been going through to draw any trenchant conclusions. 
 He asked the question, however, and therein lay the 
 great difference between him and the true stuff of 
 Methodism. 
 
 Meanwhile, in his excitement, he, for the first time, 
 ceased to go to the Dawsons' as usual. To begin with, 
 they dropped out of a mind which was preoccupied 
 with one of the first strong emotions of adolescence. 
 Then, some one told him casually that 'Lias was more 
 ailing than usual, and that Margaret was in much 
 trouble. He was pricked with remorse, but just be- 
 cause Margaret would be sure to question him, a raw 
 shyness came in and held him back from the effort of 
 going. 
 
 On the Saturday evening David, having ingeniously 
 given Louie the slip, sped across the fields to the 
 Smithy. It was past five o'clock, and the light was fading. 
 But the waning gold of the sunset as he jumped the 
 wall on to the moor made the whole autumnal earth 
 about him, and the whole side of the Scout, one splen- 
 dour. Such browns and pinks among the withering 
 ling ; such gleaming greens among the bilberry leaf ; 
 such reds among the turning ferns ; such fiery touches on 
 the mountain ashes overhanging the Ked Brook ! The
 
 220 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 western light struck in great shafts into the bosom of 
 the Scout ; and over its grand encompassing mass hung 
 some hovering clouds just kindling into rosy flame. 
 As the boy walked along he saw and thrilled to the 
 beauty which lay spread about him. His mood was 
 simple, and sweeter than usual. He felt a passionate 
 need of expression, of emotion. There was a true dis- 
 quiet, a genuine disgust with self at the bottom of him, 
 and God seemed more than imaginatively near. Per- 
 haps, on this day of his youth, of all days, he was 
 closest to the Kingdom of Heaven. 
 
 At the Smithy he found about a dozen persons, 
 mostly youths, just come out from the two or three 
 mills which give employment to Clough End, and one 
 rather older than the rest, a favourite prayer-leader in 
 Sunday meetings. At first, everything felt strange; the 
 boys eyed one another ; even David as he stepped in 
 among them had a momentary reaction, and was more 
 conscious of the presence of a red-haired fellow there 
 with whom he had fought a mighty fight on the 
 Huddersfield expedition, than of any spiritual needs. 
 
 However, the prayer-leader knew his work. He was 
 slow and pompous ; his tone with the Almighty might 
 easily have roused a hostile sense of humour ; but Dissent 
 in its active and emotional forms kills the sense of 
 humour ; and, besides, there was a real, ungainly power 
 in the man. Every phrase of his opening prayer was 
 hackneyed ; every gesture uncouth. But his heart was 
 in it, and religious conviction is the most infectious
 
 CHILDHOOD 221 
 
 thing in the world. He warmed, and his congregation 
 warmed with him. The wild scene, too, did its part — 
 the world of darkening moors spread out before them ; 
 the mountain wall behind them ; the October wind 
 sighing round the ruined walls ; the lonely unaccustomed 
 sounds of birds and water. When he ceased, boy after 
 boy broke out into more or less incoherent praying. 
 Soon in the dusk they could no longer see each other's 
 faces ; and then it was still easier to break througfh 
 reserve. 
 
 At last David found himself speaking. What he 
 said was at first almost inaudible, for he was kneelinsr 
 between the wall and the pan which had been his 
 childish joy, with his face and arms crushed against the 
 stones. But when he began the boys about pricked up 
 their ears, and David was conscious suddenly of a 
 deepened silence. There were warm tears on his 
 hidden cheeks ; but it pleased him keenly they should 
 listen so, and he prayed more audibly and freely. Then, 
 when his voice dropped at last, the prayer-leader gave 
 out the familiar hymn, ' Come, thou Traveller 
 unknown : ' — 
 
 Come, thou Traveller unknown, 
 Whom still I hold, but cannot see I 
 
 My company before is gone. 
 And I am left alone with Thee ; 
 
 With Thee all night I mean to stay, 
 
 And wrestle till the break of day.
 
 222 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 Wilt thou not yet to me reveal 
 
 Thy new unutterable name ? 
 Tell me, I still beseech thee, tell — 
 
 To know it now resolved I am. 
 "Wrestling, I will not let thee go, 
 Till I thy name, thy nature know. 
 ♦ * * * 
 
 'Tis Love ! 'tis Love — thou lovest me ! 
 
 I hear thy whisper in my heart ; 
 The morning breaks, the shadows flee. 
 
 Pure universal Love thou art ; 
 To me, to all, thy mercies move. 
 Thy nature and thy name is Love. 
 
 Again and again tlie lines rose on the autumn air ; 
 eacli time tlie hymn came to an end it was started 
 afresh, the sound of it spreading far and wide into the 
 purple breast of Kinder Scout. At last the painful 
 sobbing of poor Tom Mullins almost drowned the 
 singing. The prayer-leader, himself much moved, bent 
 over and seized him by the arm. 
 
 * Look to Jesus, Tom. Lay hold on the Saviour. 
 Don't think of your sins ; they're done away i' th' blood 
 o' the Lamb. Howd Him fast. Say, " I believe," and 
 the Lord nil deliver yo.' 
 
 With a cry, the great hulking lad sprang to his 
 feet, and clasped his arms above his head — 
 
 ^ I do believe — I will believe. Help me. Lord 
 Jesus. Oh, I'm saved ! I'm saved ! ' And he remained 
 standing in an ecstasy, looking to the sky above the 
 Scout, where the red sunset glow still lingered. 
 
 ' Hallelujah ! hallelujah ! Thanks be to God! ' cried 
 the prayer-leader, and the Smithy resounded in the
 
 CHILDHOOD 
 
 223 
 
 growing darkness with similar shouts. David was 
 almost choking with excitement. He would have given 
 worlds to spring to Tom Mullins's side and proclaim the 
 same faith. But the inmost heart of him, his real self, 
 seemed to him at this testing moment something dead 
 and cold. No heavenly voice spoke to liim^ David 
 Grieve. A genuine pang of religious despair seized 
 him. He looked out over the moor through a gap in 
 the stones. There was a dim path below; the fancy 
 struck him that Christ, the ' Traveller unknown,' was 
 passing along it. He had already stretched out His 
 hand of blessing to Tom Mullins. 
 
 ' To me ! to me, too ! ' David cried under his breath, 
 carried away by the haunting imagination, and strainino- 
 his eyes into the dusk. Had the night opened to his 
 sight there and then in a vision of glory, he would 
 have been no whit surprised. 
 
 Hark ! — what was that sound ? 
 
 A weird scream rose on the wind. The startled 
 congregation in the Smithy scrambled to their feet. 
 Another scream, nearer apparently than the first, and 
 then a loud wailing, broken every few seconds by a 
 strange slight laugh, of which the distance seemed 
 quite indefinite. Was it close by, or beyond the Red 
 Brook ? 
 
 The prayer-leader turned white, the boys stood 
 huddled round him in every attitude of terror. Again 
 the scream, and the little ghostly laugh! Looking at
 
 224 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 eacli other wildly, tlie whole congregation broke from 
 the Smithy down the hill. But the leader stopped 
 himself. 
 
 ' It's mebbe soom one in trouble/ he said manfully, 
 every limb trembling. ' We mun go and see, my lads.' 
 And he rushed off in the direction whence the first 
 sound had seemed to come — towards the Red Brook — 
 half a dozen of the bolder spirits following. The rest 
 stood cowering on the slope under the Smithy. David 
 meanwhile had climbed the ruined wall, and stood 
 with head strained forward, his eyes sweeping the 
 moor. But every outline was sinking fast into the 
 gulf of the night ; only a few indistinct masses — a 
 cluster of gorse-bushes, a clump of mountain ash — 
 still showed here and there. 
 
 The leader made for one of these darker patches 
 on the mountain-side, led on always by the recurrent 
 screams. He reached it ; it was a patch of juniper over- 
 hanging the Red Brook — when suddenly from behind 
 it there shot up a white thing, taller than the tallest 
 man, with nodding head and outspread arms, and such 
 laughter — so faint, so shrill, so evil, breaking midway 
 into a hoarse angry yell. 
 
 ' Jemiij Grum I Jenny Crum ! ' cried the whole band 
 with one voice, and, wheeling round, they ran down the 
 Scout, joined by the contingent from the Smithy, some 
 of them falling headlong among the heather in their 
 agony of flight, others ruthlessly knocking over those
 
 CHILDHOOD 11^^ 
 
 in front of them wlio seemed to be in their way. In a 
 few seconds, as it seemed, the whole Scout was left to 
 itself and the night. Footsteps, voices, all were gone — 
 save for one long peal of most human, but still elfish, 
 mirth, which came from the Red Brook. 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 A DARK figure sprang down from tlie wall of the Smithy, 
 leapt along the heather, and plunged into the bushes 
 along the brook. A cry in another key was heard. 
 
 David emerged, dragging something behind him. 
 
 ' Yo limb, yo ! How dare yo, yo little beast ? 
 Yo impident little toad ! ' And in a perfect frenzy 
 of rage he shook what he held. But Louie — for. 
 naturally it was Louie — wrenched herself away, and 
 stood confronting him, panting, but exultant. 
 
 ' I freetened 'em ! just didn't I ? Oantin humbugs ! 
 " Jenny Gnim ! Jenny Crum / " ' And, mimicking the 
 voice of the leader, she broke again into an hysterical 
 shout of laughter. 
 
 David, beside himself, hit out and struck her. It 
 was a heavy blow which knocked her down, and for a 
 moment seemed to stun her. Then she recovered her 
 senses, and flew at him in a mad passion, weeping 
 wildly with the smart and excitement. 
 
 He held her off, ashamed of himself, till she flung 
 away, shrieking out — 
 
 ' Go and say its prayers, do — good little boy — poor
 
 CHILDHOOD 227 
 
 little babby. Ugb, yo coward ! hittin gells, that's all 
 yo're good for.' 
 
 And she ran off so fast that all sight of her was 
 lost in a few seconds. Only two or three loud sobs 
 seemed to come back from the dark hollow below. As 
 for the boy he stopped a second to disentangle his 
 feet from the mop and the tattered sheet wherewith 
 Louie had worked her transformation scene. Then he 
 dashed up the hill again, past the Smithy, and into a 
 track leading out on to the high road between Castleton 
 and Clough End. He did not care where he went. Five 
 minutes ago he had been almost in heaven ; now he was 
 in hell. He hated Louie, he hated the boys who had 
 cut and run, he loathed himself. No ! — religion was 
 not for such as he. No more canting — no more pray- 
 ing — away with it ! He seemed to shake all the 
 emotion of the last few weeks from him with scorn and 
 haste, as he ran on, his strong young limbs battling 
 with the wind. 
 
 Presently he emerged on the high road. To tlie 
 left, a hundred yards away, were the lights of a way- 
 side inn; a farm waggon and a pair of horses standing 
 with drooped and patient heads were drawn up on the 
 cobbles in front of it. David felt in his pockets. There 
 was eighteenpence in them, the remains of half-a- 
 crown a strange gentleman had given him in Clough 
 End the week before for stopping a runaway horse. In 
 he stalked. 
 
 ' Two penn'orth of gin — hot ! ' he commanded. 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 The girl serving the bar brought it and stared at 
 him curiously. The glaring paraffin lamp above his 
 head threw the frowning brows and wild eyes, the 
 crimson cheeks, heaving chest, and tumbled hair, into 
 strong light and shade. ' That's a quare un ! ' she 
 thought, but she found him handsome all the same, 
 and, retreating behind the beer-taps, she eyed him sur- 
 reptitiously. She was a raw country lass, not yet 
 stript of all her natural shyness, or she would have 
 begun to ' chaff' him. 
 
 ' Another ! ' said David, pushing forward his glass. 
 This time he looked at her. His reckless gaze travelled 
 over her coarse and comely face, her full figure, her 
 bare arms. He drank the glass she gave him, and yet 
 another. She began to feel half afraid of him, and moved 
 away. The hot stimulant ran through his veins. Sud- 
 denly he felt his head whirling from the effects of it, 
 but that horrible clutch of despair was no longer on 
 him. He raised himself defiantly and turned to go, 
 staggering along the floor. He was near the entrance 
 when an inner door opened, and the carter, who had 
 been gossiping in a room behind with the landlord, 
 emerged. He started with astonishment when he saw 
 David. 
 
 ' Hullo, Davy, what are yo after ? ' 
 
 David turned, nearly losing his balance as he did 
 
 so, and clutching at the bar for support. He found 
 
 himself confronted with Jim Wigson — his old enemy — 
 
 who had been to Castleton with a load of hay and some
 
 CHILDHOOD 229 
 
 calves, and was on his way back to Kinder again. 
 When he saw who it was clinging to the bar counter, 
 Jim first stared and then burst into a hoarse roar of 
 laughter. 
 
 ' Coom here! coom here!' he shouted to the party 
 in the back parlour. ' Here's a rum start ! I do declare 
 this beats cock-fighting ! — this do. Damn my eyes iv 
 it doosn't ! Look at that yoong limb. Why they towd 
 me down at Clough End this mornin he'd been took 
 " serious " — took wi a prayin turn — they did. Look 
 at un ! It nil tak 'im till to-morrow mornin to know 
 his yed from his heels. He ! he ! he ! Yo're a deep 
 un, Davy — yo are. But yo'll get a bastin when Hannah 
 sees you — prayin or no prayiii.' 
 
 And Jim went off into another gufiaw, pointing 
 his whip the while at Davy. Some persons from the 
 parlour crowded in, enjoying the fun. David did not 
 see them. He reached out his hand for the glass he 
 had just emptied, and steadying himself by a mighty 
 effort, flung it swift and straight in Jim Wigson's face. 
 There was a crash of fragments, a line of blood 
 appeared on the young carter's chin, and a chorus of 
 wrath and alarm rose from the group behind him. 
 With a furious oath Jim placed a hand on the bar, 
 vaulted it, and fell upon the lad. David defended 
 himself blindly, but he was dazed with drink, and his 
 blows and kicks rained aimlessly on Wigson's iron 
 frame. In a second or two Jim had tripped him up,
 
 230 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 and stood over liim, his face ablaze witli vengeance and 
 conquest. 
 
 ' Yo yoong varmint — yo cantin yoong hypocrite ! 
 I'll teach yo to show imperence to your betters. 
 Yo bin alius badly i' want o' soombody to tak yo down 
 a peg or two. Now I'll show yo. I'll not fight yo, 
 but I'll flog jo^flog yo — d' yo hear ? ' 
 
 And raising his carter's whip he brought it down 
 on the boy's back and legs. David tried desperately to 
 rise — in vain — Jim had him by the collar ; and four or 
 five times more the heavy whip came down, avenging 
 with each lash many a slumbering grudge in the victor's 
 soul. 
 
 Then Jim felt his arm firmly caught. ' Now, 
 Mister Wigson,' cried the landlord — a little man, but a 
 wiry — ' yo'll not get me into trooble. Let th' yoong 
 ripstitch go. Yo've gien him a taste he'll not forget in 
 a week o' Sundays. Let him go.' 
 
 Jim, with more oaths, struggled to get free, but the 
 landlord had quelled many rows in his time, and his 
 wrists were worthy of his calling. Meanwhile his wife 
 helped up the boy. David was no sooner on his feet 
 than he made another mad rush for Wigson, and it 
 needed the combined efforts of landlord, landlady, and 
 servant-girl to part the two again. Then the landlord, 
 seizing David from behind by ' the scuft of the neck,' 
 ran him out to the door in a twinkling. 
 
 ' Go 'long wi yo ! An if yo coom raisin th' divil 
 here again, see iv I don't gie yo a souse on th' yed
 
 CHILDHOOD 231 
 
 mysel.' And lie shoved liis charge out adroitly and 
 locked the door. 
 
 David staggered across the road as though still 
 under the impetus given by the landlord's shove. 
 
 The servant-girl took advantage of the loud cross- 
 fire of talk which immediately rose at the bar round 
 Jim Wigson to run to a corner window and lift the 
 blind. The boy was sitting on a heap of stones for 
 mending the road, looking at the inn. Other passers- 
 by had come in, attracted by the row, and the girl 
 slipped out unperceived, opened the side door, and ran 
 across the road. It had begun to rain, and the drops 
 splashed in her face. 
 
 David was sitting leaning forward, his eyes fixed on 
 the lighted windows of the house opposite. The rays 
 which came from them showed her that his nose and 
 forehead were bleeding, and that the blood was dripping 
 unheeded on the boy's clothes. He was utterly power- 
 less, and trembling all over, but his look ' gave her a 
 turn.' 
 
 ' Now, luke here,' she said, bending down to him. 
 ' Yo jes go whoam. Wigson, he'll be out direckly, an 
 he'll do yo a hurt iv he finds yo. Coom, I'll put yo 
 i' the way for Kinder.' 
 
 And before he could gather his will to resist, she 
 had dragged him up with her strong countrywoman's 
 arms and was leading him along the road to the 
 entrance of the lane he had come by. 
 
 ' Lor, yo 6t/-e bleedin,' she said compassionately ;
 
 232 THE HISTORY OT DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 'lie sliud ha tliowt as how yo wor nobbut a lad — an it 
 vvor he begun aggin fust. He's a big bully is Wigson.' 
 And impulsively raising her apron she applied it to 
 the blood, David quite passive all the while. The great 
 clumsy lass nearly kissed him for pity. 
 
 ' Now then,' she said at last, turning him into the 
 lane, ' yo know your way, an I mun goo, or they'll be 
 raisin the parish arter me. Gude neet to yo, an keep 
 out o' Wigson' s seet. Rest yursel a bit theer — agen 
 th' wall.' 
 
 And leaving him leaning against the wall, she re- 
 luctantly departed, stopping to look back at him two 
 or three times in spite of the rain, till the angle of the 
 wall hid him from view. 
 
 The rain poured down and the wind whistled 
 through the rough lane. David presently slipped down 
 upon a rock jutting from the wall, and a fevered, inter- 
 mittent sleep seized him — the result of the spirits he 
 had been drinking. His will could oppose no resist- 
 ance ; he slept on hour after hour, sheltered a little by 
 an angle of the wall, but still soaked by rain and 
 buffeted by the wind. 
 
 When he awoke he staggered suddenly to his feet. 
 The smart of his back and legs recalled him, after 
 a few moments of bewilderment, to a mental torture he 
 had scarcely yet had time to feel. He — David Grieve 
 — had been beaten — thrashed like a dog — by Jim 
 Wigson ! The remembered fact brought with it a 
 degradation of mind and body — a complete unstringing
 
 CHILDHOOD 233 
 
 of the moral fibres, whicli made even revenge seem an 
 impossible output of energy. A nature of this sort, 
 with such capacities and ambitions, carries about with 
 it a sense of supremacy, a natural, indispensable self- 
 conceit which acts as the sheath to the bud, and is 
 the condition of healthy development. Break it down 
 and you bruise and jeopardise the flower of life. 
 
 Jim Wigson! — the coarse, ignorant lout with whom 
 he had been, more or less, at feud since his first day in 
 Kinder, whom he had despised with all the strength of 
 his young vanity. By to-morrow all Kinder would 
 know, and all Kinder would laugh. ' What ! yo 
 whopped Reuben Grieve's nevvy, Jim ? Wal, an a good 
 tiling, too ! A lick now an aorain ud do Mm noa harm 
 — a cantankerous yoong rascot — pert an proud, like t 
 passon's pig, I say.' David could hear the talk to be 
 as though it were actually beside him. It burnt into 
 his ear. 
 
 He groped his way through the lane and on to the 
 moor — trembling with physical exhaustion, the morbid 
 frenzy within him choking his breath, the storm beat- 
 ing in his face. What was that black mass to his 
 right ? — the Smithy ? A hard sob rose in his throat. 
 Oh, he had been so near to an ideal world of sweetness, 
 purity, holiness ! Was it a year ago ? 
 
 With great difficulty he found the crossing-place 
 in the brook, and then the gap in the wall which led 
 him into the farm fields. When he was still a couple
 
 234 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 of fields off the house he heard the dogs beginning. 
 But he heard them as though in a dream. 
 
 At last he stood at the door and fumbled for the 
 handle. Locked ! Why, what time could it be ? He 
 tried to remember what time he had left home, but 
 failed. At last he knocked, and just as he did so he 
 perceived through a chink of the kitchen shutter a 
 light on the scrubbed deal table inside, and Hannah's 
 figure beside it. At the sound of the knocker Hannah 
 rose, put away her work with deliberation, snufied the 
 candle, and then moved with it to the door of the 
 kitchen. The boy watched her with a quickly beating 
 heart and whirling brain. She opened the door. 
 
 ' Whar yo bin ? ' she demanded sternly. ' I'd like 
 to know what business yo have to coom in this time 
 o' neet, an your uncle fro whoam. Yo've bin in 
 mischief, I'll be bound. Theer's Louie coom back wi 
 a black eye, an jes because she woan't say nowt about 
 it, I know as it's yo are at t' bottom o' 't. I'm reg'lar 
 sick o' sich doins in a decent house. Whar yo bin, 
 I say ? ' 
 
 And this time she held the candle up so as to see 
 him. She had been sitting fuming by herself, and was 
 in one of her blackest tempers. David's misdemeanour 
 was like food to a hungry instinct. 
 
 ^ I went to prayer -meetin,' the lad said thickly. It 
 seemed to him as though the words came all in the 
 wrong order. 
 
 Hannah bent forward and gave a sudden cry.
 
 CHILDHOOD 235 
 
 ' Why, yo bin fightin ! Yo're all ower blood ! Yo 
 bin figlitin, and I'll bet a thousand pund yo draw'd 
 in Louie too. And sj)errits ! Why, yo smell o' sperrits ! 
 Yo're jes reekin wi 'em! Wa], upon my word!' — 
 and Hannah drew herself back, flinging every slow 
 word in his face like a blow. ' Yo feature your mither, 
 yo do, boath on you, pretty close. I alius said it ud 
 coom out i' yo too. Prayer-meetin ! Yo yoong hypo- 
 crite ! Gang your ways ! Yo may sleep i' th' stable ; 
 it's good enough liggin for yo this neet.' 
 
 And before he had taken in her words she had 
 slammed the door in his face, and locked it. He made 
 a feeble rush for it in vain. Hannah marched back 
 into the kitchen, listening instinctively first to him 
 left outside, and then for any sound there might be from 
 upstairs. In a minute or two she heard uneven steps 
 going away ; but there was no movement in the room 
 overhead. Louie was sleeping heavily. As for Hannali, 
 she sat down again with a fierce decision of gesture, 
 which seemed to vibrate through the kitchen and all it 
 held. Who could find fault with her ? It would be a 
 lesson to him. It was not a cold night, and there was 
 straw in the stable— a deal better lying than such a boy 
 deserved. As she thought of his ' religious ' turn she 
 shrugged her shoulders with a bitter scorn. 
 
 The night wore on in the high Kinder valley. The 
 stormy wind and rain beat in great waves of sound and 
 flood against the breast of the mountain ; the Kinder
 
 236 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 stream and the Red Brook danced under the heavy drops. 
 The grouse lay close and silent in the sheltering heather ; 
 even the owls in the lower woods made no sound. Still, 
 the night was not perfectly dark, for towards midnight 
 a watery moon rose, and showed itself at intervals be- 
 tween the pelting showers. 
 
 In the Dawsons' little cottage on Frimley Moor there 
 were still lights showing when that pale moon appeared. 
 Margaret was watching late. She and another woman 
 sat by the fire talking under their breaths. A kettle 
 was beside her with a long spout, which sent the steam 
 far into the room, keeping the air of it moist and warm 
 for the poor bronchitic old man who lay close-curtained 
 from the draughts on the wooden bed in the corner. 
 
 The kettle sang, the fire crackled, and the wind 
 shook the windows and doors. But suddenly, through 
 the other sounds, Margaret was aware of an intermittent 
 knocking — a low, hesitating sound, as of some one out- 
 side afraid, and yet eager, to make himself heard. 
 
 She started up, and her companion — a homely 
 neighbour, one of those persons whose goodness had, 
 perhaps, helped to shape poor Margaret's philosophy of 
 life — looked round with a scared expression. 
 
 ' Whoiver can it be, this time o' neet ? ' said Mar- 
 garet — and she looked at the old clock — ' why, it's close 
 on middle-neet ! ' 
 
 She hesitated a moment, then she went to the door, 
 and bent her mouth to the chink —
 
 CHILDHOOD 237 
 
 ' Who are yo ? What d' yo want ? ' she asked, in 
 a distinct but low voice, so as not to disturb 'Lias. 
 
 No answer for a minute. Then her ear caught some 
 words from outside. With an exclamation she unlocked 
 the door and threw it open. 
 
 ' Davy ! Davy ! ' she cried, almost forgetting her 
 patient. 
 
 The boy clung to the lintel without a word. 
 
 ' Coom your ways in ! ' she said peremptorily, catching 
 him by the sleeve. ' We conno ha no draughts on th' 
 owd man.' 
 
 And she drew him into the light, and shut the door. 
 Then as the shaded candle and firelight fell on the tall 
 lad, wavering now to this side, now to that, as though 
 unable to support himself, his clothes dripping on the 
 flags, his face deadly white, save for the smears of blood 
 upon it, the two women fell back in terror. 
 
 ^ Will yo gie me shelter ? ' said the boy, hoarsely ; 
 * I bin lying hours i' th' wet. Aunt Hannah turned 
 me out.' 
 
 Margaret came close to him and looked him all 
 over. 
 
 ' What for did she turn yo out, Davy ? ' 
 
 ' I wor late. I'd been fightin Jim Wigson, an she 
 smelt me o' drink.' 
 
 And suddenly the lad sank down on a stool near, 
 and laid his head in his hands, as though he could hold 
 it up no longer. 
 
 Margaret's blanched old face melted all in a minute.
 
 238 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 ' Howcl 'un up quick ! ' she said to her companion, 
 still in a whisper. ' He hanno got a dry thread on — an 
 luke at that cut on his yed — why, he'll be laid up for 
 weeks, maybe, for this. Get his cloos off, an we'll put 
 him on my bed then.' 
 
 And between them they dragged him up, and. 
 Margaret began to strip off his jacket. As they held 
 him — David surrendering himself passively — the curtain 
 of the bed was drawn back, and 'Lias, raising himself 
 on an elbow, looked out into the room. As he caught 
 sight of the group of the boy and the two women, 
 arrested in their task by the movement of the curtain, 
 the old man's face expressed, first a weak and agitated 
 bewilderment, and then in an instant it cleared. 
 
 His dream wove the sight into itself, and 'Lias 
 knew all about it. His thin long features, with the 
 white hair hanging about them, took an indulgent 
 amused look. 
 
 ' Bony — eh, Bony, is that '?/o, man ? Eh, but j'o're 
 cold an pinched, loike ! A gude glass o' English grog 
 ud not come amiss to yo. An your coat, an your 
 boots — what is 't drippin ? 8naiv ? Yo make a man's 
 backbane freeze t' see yo. An there's hot wark behind 
 yo, too. Moscow might ha warmed yo, I'm thinkin, 
 an ' 
 
 But the weak husky voice gave way, and 'Lias fell 
 back, still holding the curtain, though, in his emaciated 
 hand, and straining his dim eyes on David. Margaret, 
 with tears, ran to him, tried to quiet him and to shut
 
 CHILDHOOD 239 
 
 out tlie light from him again. But lie pushed her 
 irritably aside. 
 
 ' No, Margaret, — doan't intrude. What d' yo know 
 about it ? Yo know nowt, Margaret. When did yo 
 iver heer o' the Moscow campaign ? Let me be, woan't 
 yo?' 
 
 But perceiving that he would not be quieted, she 
 turned him on his pillows, so that he could see the boy 
 at his ease. 
 
 ' He's bin out i' th' wet, 'Lias dear, has Davy/ 
 she said ; ^ and it's nobbut a clashy night. We mun 
 gie him summat hot, and a place to sleep in.' 
 
 But the old man did not listen to her. He lay 
 looking at David, his pale blue eyes weirdly visible in 
 his haggard face, muttering to himself. He was still 
 tramping in the snow with the French army. 
 
 Then, suddenly, for the first time, he seemed 
 troubled. He stared up at the pale miserable boy who 
 stood looking at him with trembling lips. His own 
 face began to work painfully, his dream struggled with 
 recognition. 
 
 Margaret drew David quickly away. She hurried 
 him into the further comer of the cottage, where 
 he was out of sight of the bed. There she quickly 
 stripped him of his wet garments, as any mother 
 might have done, found an old flannel shirt of 'Lias's 
 for him, and, wrapping him close in a blanket, she 
 made him lie down on her own bed, he being now much 
 too weak to realise what was done with him. Then
 
 240 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 slie got an empty bottle, filled it from the kettle, and put 
 it to his feet ; and finally she brought a bowlful of warm 
 water and a bit of towel, and, sitting down by him, 
 she washed the blood and dirt away from his face 
 and hand, and smoothed down the tangled black hair. 
 She, too, noticed the smell of spirits, and shook her head 
 over it ; but her motherliness grew with every act of 
 service, and when she had made him warm and comfort- 
 able, and he was dropping into the dead sleep of exhaus- 
 tion, she drew her old hand tenderly across his brow. 
 
 ' He do feature yan o' my own lads so as he lies 
 theer,' she said tremulously to her friend at the fire, as 
 though explaining herself ' When they'd coom home 
 late fro wark, I'd use to hull 'em up so mony a time. 
 Ay, I'd been woonderin what had coom to th' boy. I 
 thowt he'd been goin wraug soomhow, or he'd ha coom 
 aw these weeks to see 'Lias an me. It's a poor sort 
 o' family he's got. That Hannah Grieve's a hard un, 
 I'll uphowd yo. Theer's a deal o' her fault in 't, yo 
 may mak sure.' 
 
 Then she went to give 'Lias some brandy — he 
 lived on little else now. He dropped asleep again, and, 
 coming back to the hearth, she consented to lie down 
 before it while her friend watched. Her failing frame 
 was worn out with nursing and want of rest, and she 
 was soon asleep. 
 
 When Davy awoke the room was full of a chill day- 
 light. As he moved he felt himself stiff all over. The 
 sensation brought back memory, and the boy's whole
 
 CHILDHOOD 241 
 
 being seemed to shrink together. He burrowed first 
 under his coverings out of the light, then suddenly he 
 sat up in bed, in the shadow of the little staircase — or 
 rather ladder — which led to the upper story, and looked 
 about him. 
 
 The good woman who had shared Margaret's watch 
 was gone back to her own home and children. Mar- 
 garet had made up the fire, tidied the room, and, at 
 Lias's request, drawn up the blinds. She had just 
 given him some beef-tea and brandy, sponged his face, 
 and lifted him on his pillows. There seemed to be a 
 revival of life in the old man, death was for the 
 moment driven back ; and Margaret hung over him in 
 an ecstasy, the two crooning together. David could 
 see her thin bent figure — the sharpened delicacy of 
 the emaciated face set in the rusty black net cap which 
 was tied under the chin, and fell in soft frills on the 
 still brown and silky hair. He saw her weaver's hand 
 folded round 'Lias's, and he could hear 'Lias speak- 
 ing in a weak thread of a voice, but still sanely and 
 rationally. It gave him a start to catch some of the 
 words — he had been so long accustomed to the visionary 
 'Lias. 
 
 * Have yo rested, Margaret ? ' 
 
 * Ay, dear love, three hours an' moor. Betsy James 
 wor here ; she saw yo wanted for nowt. She's a gude 
 creetur, ain't she, 'Lias ? ' 
 
 ^ Ay, but noan so good as my Margaret,' said tlie 
 old man, looking at her wistfully. ' But yo'll wear 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 yorsel down, Margaret; yoVe liad no rest for neets. 
 Yo're alius toilin' and moilin', an' I'm no worth it, 
 Margaret.' 
 
 The tears gushed to the wife's eyes. It was only 
 with the nearness of death that 'Lias seemed to have 
 found out his debt to her. To both, her lifelong service 
 had been the natural offering of the lower to the higher ; 
 she had not been used to gratitude, and she could not 
 bear it. 
 
 ' Dear heart ! dear love ! ' David heard her say ; and 
 then there came to his half-reluctant ear caresses such 
 as a mother gives her child. He laid his head on his 
 knees, trying to shut them out. He wished with a 
 passionate and bitter regret that he had not been so 
 many weeks without coming near these two people ; 
 and now 'Lias was going fast, and after to-day he would 
 see them both no more — for ever ? 
 
 Margaret heard him moving, and nodded back to him 
 over her shoulder. 
 
 ' Yo've slept well, Davy, — better nor I thowt yo 
 would. Your cloos are by yo — atwixt yo an t' stairs.' 
 
 And there he found them, dry and brushed. He 
 dressed hastily and came forward to the fire. 'Lias 
 recognised him feebly, Margaret watching anxiously to 
 see whether his fancies would take him again. In this 
 tension of death and parting his visions had become 
 almost more than she could bear. But 'Lias lay 
 quiet. 
 
 ' Davy wor caught i' th' rain, and I gave him a bed,'
 
 CHILDHOOD 243 
 
 she explained again, and the old man nodded without a 
 word. 
 
 Then as she prepared him a bowl of oatmeal she 
 stood by the fire giving the boy motherly advice. He 
 must go back home, of course, and never mind Hannah ; 
 there would come a time when he would get his chance 
 like other people ; and he mustn't drink, for, ' i' th' first 
 place, drink wor a sad waste o' good wits,' and David's 
 were ' better 'n most ; ' and in the second, ^ it wor a sin 
 agen the Lord.' 
 
 David sat with his head drooped in his hand appa- 
 rently listening. In reality, her gentle babble passed 
 over him almost unheeded. He was aching in mind 
 and body ; his strong youth, indeed, had but just saved 
 him from complete physical collapse ; for he had lain 
 an indefinite time on the soaking moor, till misery and 
 despair had driven him to Margaret's door. But his 
 moral equilibrium was beginning to return, in virtue 
 of a certain resolution, the one thing which now stood 
 between him and the black gulf of the night. He ate 
 his porridge and then he got up. 
 
 * I mun goo, Margaret.' 
 
 He would fain have thanked her, but the words 
 choked in his throat. 
 
 ^ Ay, soa yo mun, Davy,' said the little body briskly. 
 'If theer's an onpleasant thing to do it's best doon 
 quickly — yo mun go back and do your duty. Coom 
 and see us when yo're passin again. An say good-bye 
 to 'Lias. He's that wick this mornin — ain't yo, 'Lias ? '
 
 244 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 And with a tender cheerfulness she ran across to 
 'Lias and told him Davy was going. 
 
 ' Good-bye, Davy, my lad, good-bye,' murmured the 
 old man, as he felt the boy's strong fingers touching his. 
 ' Have yo been readin owt, Davy, since we saw yo? 
 It's a long time, Davy.' 
 
 ' No, nowt of ony account,' said David, looking 
 away. 
 
 * Ay, but 3'0 mun keep it up. Coom when yo 
 like ; I've not mony books, but yo know yo can have 'em 
 aw. I want noan o' them now, do I, Marg'ret ? But I 
 want for nowt — nowt. Dyin 's long, but it's varra — 
 varra peaceful. Margaret ! ' 
 
 And withdrawing his hand from Davy, 'Lias laid it 
 in his wife's with a long, long sigh. David left them so. 
 He stole out unperceived by either of them. 
 
 When he got outside he stood for a moment under 
 the sheltering sycamores and laid his cheek against the 
 door. The action contained all he could not say. 
 
 Then he sped along towards the farm. The sun 
 was rising through the autumn mists, striking on the 
 gold of the chestnuts, the red of the cherry trees. 
 There were spaces of intense blue among the rolling 
 clouds, and between the storm past and the storm to 
 come the whole moorland world was lavishly, garishly 
 bright. 
 
 He paused at the top of the pasture-fields to look at 
 the farm. Smoke was already rising from the chimney. 
 Then Aunt Hannah was up, and he must mind himself.
 
 CHILDHOOD 245 
 
 He crept on under walls, till he got to the back of the 
 farmyard. Then he slipped in, ran into the stable, and 
 got an old coat of his left there the day before. There 
 was a copy of a Methodist paper lying near it. He 
 took it up and tore it across with passion. But his 
 rage was not so much with the paper. It was his own 
 worthless, unstable, miserable self he would have rent if 
 he could. The wreck of ideal hopes, the defacement of 
 that fair image of itself which every healthy youth 
 bears about with it, could not have been more pitifully 
 expressed. 
 
 Then he looked round to see if there was anything 
 else that he could honestly take. Yes — an ash stick 
 he had cut himself a week or two ago. Nothing else — 
 and there was Tibby moving and beginning to bark in 
 the cowhouse. 
 
 He ran across the road, and from a safe shelter in 
 the fields on the farther side he again looked back to 
 the farm. There was Louie's room, the blind still 
 down. He thought of his blow of the night before — of 
 his promises to her. Aye, she would fret over his 
 going — he knew that — in her own wild way. She 
 would think he had been a beast to her. So he had — 
 so he had ! There surged up in his mind inarticulate 
 phrases of remorse, of self-excuse, as though he were 
 talking to her. 
 
 Some day he would come back and claim her. But 
 when ! His buoyant self-dependence was all gone. It 
 had nothing to do with his present departure. That
 
 246 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 came simply from the fact that it was impossible for 
 him to go on living in Kinder any longer — he did not 
 stop to analyse the whys and wherefores. 
 
 But suddenly a nervous horror of seeing anyone he 
 knew, now that the morning was advancing, startled 
 him from his hiding-place. He ran up towards the 
 Scout again, so as to make a long circuit round the 
 Wigsons' farm. As he distinguished the walls of it a 
 shiver of passion ran through the young body. Then 
 he struck off straight across the moors towards Glossop. 
 
 One moment he stood on the top of Mardale Moor. 
 On one side of him was the Kinder valley, Needham 
 Farm still showing among its trees ; the white cataract 
 of the Downfall cleaving the dark wall of the Scout, 
 and calling to the runaway in that voice of storm he 
 knew so well ; the Mermaid's Pool gleaming like an 
 eye in the moorland. On the other side were hollow 
 after hollow, town beyond town, each with its cap of 
 morning smoke. There was New Mills, there was 
 Stockport, there in the far distance was Manchester. 
 
 The boy stood a moment poised between the two 
 worlds, his ash-stick in his hand, the old coat wound 
 round his arm. Then at a bound he cleared a low 
 stone wall beside him and ran down the Glossop road. 
 
 Twelve hours later Reuben Grieve climbed the long 
 hill to the farm. His wrinkled face was happier than 
 it had been for months, and his thoughts were so 
 pleasantly occupied that he entirely failed to perceive.
 
 CHILDHOOD 247 
 
 for instance, the behaviour of an acquaintance, who 
 stopped and started as he met him at the entrance of 
 the Kinder lane, made as though he would have spoken, 
 and, thinking better of it, walked on. Reuben — the 
 mendacious Eeuben — had done very well with his 
 summer stock — very well indeed. And part of his 
 earnings was now safely housed in the hands of an old 
 chapel friend, to whom he had confided them under 
 pledge of secrecy. But he took a curious, excited 
 pleasure in the thought of the ' poor mouth ' he was 
 going to make to Hannah. He was growing reckless 
 in his passion for restitution — always provided, how- 
 ever, that he was not called upon to brave his wife 
 openly. A few more such irregular savings, and, if an 
 opening turned up for David, he could pay the money 
 and pack off the lad before Hannah could look round. 
 He could never do it under her opposition, but he 
 thought he could do it and take the consequences — he 
 tliouglit he could. 
 
 He opened his own gate. There on the house door- 
 step stood Hannah, whiter and grimmer than ever. 
 
 ' Reuben Grieve,' she said quickly, ' your nevvy's run 
 away. An if yo doan't coom and keep your good-for- 
 nothin niece in her place, and make udder foak keep 
 a civil tongue i' their head to your wife, I'll leave your 
 house this neet, as sure as I wor born a Martin ! ' 
 
 Reuben stumbled into the house. There was a wild 
 rush downstairs, and Louie fell upon him, David's blow 
 showing ghastly plain in her white quivering face.
 
 248 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 ' Whar's Davy ? ' she said. ' YoVe got him ! — he's 
 hid soomwhere — yo know whar he is ! I'll not stay 
 here if yo conno find him ! It wor lier fault ' — and she 
 threw out a shaking hand towards her aunt — ' she 
 druv him out last neet — an Dawsons took him in — 
 an iverybody's cryin shame on her ! An if yo doan't 
 mak her find him — she knows where he is — I'll not 
 stay in this hole !— I'll kill her !— I'll burn th' house !— 
 I'll ' 
 
 The child stopped — panting, choked — beside her- 
 self. 
 
 Hannah made a threatening step, but at her 
 gesture Reuben sprang up, and seizing her by both 
 wrists he looked at her from a height, as a judge looks. 
 Never had those dull eyes met her so before. 
 
 ' Woman ! ' he cried fiercely. ' Woman ! what ha 
 yo doon wi Sandy's son ? '
 
 BOOK II 
 YOUTH
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 A TALL yontli carrying a parcel of books under Ms 
 arm was linrrying along Market Place, Manchester. 
 Beside liim were covered flower stalls bordering the 
 pavement, in front of him the domed mass of the 
 Manchester Exchange, and on all sides he had to push 
 his way through a crowd of talking, chaffering, hurrying 
 humanity. Presently he stopped at the door of a 
 restaurant bearing the idyllic and altogether remark- 
 able name — there it was in gilt letters over the door — 
 of the ' Fruit and Flowers Parlour.' On the side post 
 of the door a bill of fare was posted, which the young 
 man looked up and down with careful eyes. It con- 
 tained a strange medley of items in all tongues — 
 
 Marrow pie 
 
 Haricots d la Lime de Miel 
 
 Vol-au-Vent d la honne Sante 
 
 Tomato fritters 
 
 Cheese 'Ticements 
 
 Salad saladorum 
 
 And at the bottom of the memi was printed in bold 
 red characters, ' No meat, no disease. Ergo^ no meat,
 
 •252 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 no sin. Fellow-citizens, leave your carnal foods, and 
 try a more excellent way. I.E. Push the door and walk 
 in. The Fruit and Flowers Parlour invites everybody 
 and overcharges nobody.' 
 
 The youth did not trouble, however, to read the 
 notice. He knew it and the ' Parlour ' behind it by 
 heart. But he moved away, pondering the menu with 
 a smile. 
 
 In his amused abstraction — at the root of which 
 lay the appetite of eighteen — he suddenly ran into a 
 passer-by, who stumbled against a shop window with 
 an exclamation of pain. The youth's attention was 
 attracted and he stopped awkwardly. 
 
 '- People of your height, young man, should look 
 before them,' said the victim, rubbing what seemed to 
 be a deformed leg, while his lips paled a little. 
 
 ' Mr. Ancrum,' cried the other, amazed. 
 
 ' Davy ! ' 
 
 The two looked at each other. Then Mr. Ancrum 
 gripped the lad's arm. 
 
 ' Help me along, Davy. It's only a bruise. It'll 
 go off. Wbere are you going ? ' 
 
 ' Up Piccadilly way with a parcel,' said Davy, look- 
 ing askance at his companion's nether man. ' Did I 
 knock your bad leg, sir ? ' 
 
 ' Oh no, nothing — never mind. Well now, Davy, 
 this is queer — decidedly queer. Four years ! — and we 
 run against each other in Market Street at last. Tell 
 me the truth, Davy — have you long ago given me up as
 
 YOUTH 253 
 
 a man who could make promises to a lad in difficulties 
 and forget 'em as soon as he was out of sight ? Say it 
 out, my boy.' 
 
 David flushed and looked down at his companion 
 with some embarrassment. Their old relation of 
 minister and pupil had left a deep mark behind it. 
 Moreover, in the presence of that face of Mr. Ancrum's, 
 a long, thin, slightly twisted face, with the stamp 
 somehow of a tragic sincerity on the eyes and mouth, 
 it was difficult to think as slightingly of his old friend 
 as he had done for a good while past, apparently with 
 excellent reason. 
 
 ' I supposed there was something the matter,' he 
 blurted out at last. 
 
 ' Well, never mind, Davy,' said the other, smiling 
 sadly. ' We can't talk here in this din. But now I've 
 got you, I keep you. Where are you ? ' 
 
 ' I'm in Half Street, sir — Purcell's, the bookseller.' 
 
 ' Don't know him. I never go into a shop. I have 
 no money. Are you apprentice there ? ' 
 
 ' Well, there was no binding. I'm assistant. I do a 
 lot of business one way and another, buying and selling 
 both.' 
 
 ' How long have you been in Manchester ? ' 
 
 * Four years, sir.' 
 
 The minister looked amazed. 
 
 '- And I have been here, off and on, for the last three. 
 How have we missed each other all that time ? I made 
 inquiries at Clough End, when — ah, well, no matter ;
 
 254 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 but it was too late. You had decamped, no one could 
 tell me anything.' 
 
 David Avalked on beside his companion, silent and 
 awkward. The explanation seemed a lame one. Mr. 
 Ancrum had left Clough End in May, promising to 
 look out for a place for the lad at once, and to let him 
 know. Six whole months elapsed between that pro- 
 mise and David's own departure. Yes, it was lame ; 
 but it was so long ago, and so many things had 
 happened since, that it did not signify. Only he did 
 not somehow feel much effusion in meeting his old 
 friend and playfellow again. 
 
 ' Getting on, Davy ? ' said Ancrum presently, look- 
 ing the lad up and down. 
 
 David made a movement of the shoulders which the 
 minister noticed. It was both more free and more 
 graceful than ordinary English gesture. It reawakened 
 in Ancrum at once that impression of something alien 
 and unusual which both David and his sister had often 
 produced in him while they were still children. 
 
 ' I don't know,' said the boy slowly ; and then, after 
 a hesitation or two, fell silent. 
 
 ' Well, look here,' said Ancrum, stopping short ; 
 ' this won't do for talk, as I said before ; but I must 
 know all about you, and I must tell you what I can 
 about myself. I lodge in Mortimer Road, you know, up 
 Fallowfield way. You can get there by tram in twenty 
 minutes ; when will you come and see me ? To-night ? ' 
 
 The lad thought a moment.
 
 YOUTH 255 
 
 ^ Would Wednesday night do, sir ? I — I believe I'm 
 going to tlie music to-night.' 
 
 ' What, to the " Elijah," in the Free Trade Hall ? 
 Appoint me a place to meet — we'll go together — and you 
 shall come home to supper with me afterwards.' 
 David flushed and looked straight before him. 
 ' I promised to take two young ladies,' he said, 
 after a moment, abruptly. 
 
 ' Oh ! ' said Mr. Ancrum, laughing. ' I apologise. 
 Well, Wednesday night, then, — Don't you forget, Davy 
 — half-past seven ? Done. /4, Mortimer Road. Good- 
 bye.' 
 
 And the minister turned and retraced his steps 
 towards Market Place. He walked slowly, like one 
 much preoccupied, and might have run into fresh risks 
 but for the instinctive perception of most passers-by 
 that he was not a person to be hustled. Suddenly he 
 laughed out — thinking of David and his ' young ladies,' 
 and comparing the lad's admission with his foraier 
 attitude towards ' gells.' Well, time had but wrought 
 its natural work. What a brilliant noticeable creature 
 altogether — how unlike the ordinary run of north- 
 country lads ! But that he had been from the beginning 
 — the strain of some nimbler blood had always shown 
 itself. 
 
 Meanwhile, David made his way up Piccadilly — 
 did some humourist divert himself, in days gone by, 
 with dropping a shower of London names on ^lan- 
 chester streets? — and deposited his parcel. Then the
 
 256 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 great clock of the Exchange struck twelve, and the 
 Cathedral followed close upon it, the sounds swaying 
 and vibrating above the crowds hurrying through 
 Market Street. It was a damp October day. Above, 
 the sky was hidden by a dark canopy of cloud and 
 smoke ; the Cathedral on its hill rose iron-black above 
 the black streets and river; black mud encrusted all 
 the streets, and bespattered those that walked in them. 
 Nothing more dreary than the smoke-grimed buildings 
 on either hand, than the hideous railway station across 
 the bridge, or the mud-sprinkled hoardings covered 
 with flaring advertisements, which led up to the bridge, 
 could be well imagined. Manchester was at its darkest 
 and grimmest. 
 
 But as David Grieve walked back along Market 
 Street his heart danced within him. Neither mud nor 
 darkness, neither the squalor of the streets, nor the 
 penetrating damp of the air, affected him at all. The 
 crowd, the rush of life about him, the gas in the shops, 
 the wares on which it shone, the endless faces passing 
 him, the sense of hurry, of business, of quick living — 
 he saw and felt nothing else ; and to these his youth 
 was all atune. 
 
 Arrived in Market Place again he made his way 
 with alacrity to the ' Parlour.' For it was dinner time ; 
 he had a free half-hour, and nine times out of ten he 
 spent it at the ' Parlour.' 
 
 He walked in, put his hat on its accustomed peg, 
 took his seat at a table near the door, and looked round
 
 YOUTH 257 
 
 for some one. The low widespreading room was well 
 filled, mostly with clerks and shopmen ; the gas was lit 
 because of the darkness outside, and showed off the 
 gay panels on the walls filled with fruit and flower 
 subjects, for which Adrian O'Connor Lomax, commonly 
 called ' Daddy,' the owner of the restaurant, had given a 
 commission to some students at the Mechanics' Institute, 
 and whereof he was inordinately proud. At the end of 
 the room near the counter was a table occupied by 
 about half a dozen young men, all laughing and talk- 
 ing noisily, and beside them — shouting, gesticulating, 
 making dashes, now for one, now for another — was 
 a figure, which David at once set himself to watch, his 
 chin balanced on his hand, his eyes dancing. It was 
 the thin tall figure of an oldish man in a long frock- 
 coat, which opened in front over a gaily flowered silk 
 waistcoat. On the bald crown of his head he wore a 
 black skull-cap, below which certain gi'otesque and 
 scanty tails of fair hair, carefully brushed, fell to his 
 shoulders. His face was long and sharply pointed, and 
 the surface of it bronzed and wrinkled by long exposure, 
 out of dl likeness to human skin. The eyes were 
 weirdly prominent and blue ; tlie gestures had the 
 deliberate extravagance of an actor ; and the whole man 
 recalled a wizard of pantomime. 
 
 David had hardly time to amuse himself with the 
 ' chaffing ' of Daddy, which was going on, and which 
 went on habitually at the Parlour from morning till 
 night, when Daddy perceived a new-comer. 
 
 VOL. I. S
 
 258 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 He turned round sharp upon his heels, surveyed the 
 room with the frown of a general. 
 
 ' Ah ! ' he said with a theatrical air, as he made out 
 the lad at the further table. ' Gentlemen, I let you oflF 
 for the present/ and waving his hand to them with an 
 indulgent self-importance, which provoked a roar of 
 laughter, he turned and walked down the restaurant, 
 with a quick swaying gait, to where David sat. 
 
 David made room for him in a smiling silence. 
 Lomax sat down, and the two looked at each other. 
 
 ' Davy,' said Daddy severely, ' why weren't you here 
 yesterday ? ' 
 
 ' When did you begin opening on Sundays, Daddy ? ' 
 said the youth, attacking a portion of marrow pie, which 
 had just been laid before him, his gay curious eyes still 
 wandering over Daddy's costume, which was to-day 
 completed by a large dahlia in the buttonhole, as 
 grotesque as the rest. 
 
 ' Ah bedad, but I'm losing my memory entirely ; — 
 and you know it, you varmint. Well then, it was 
 Saturday you weren't here.' 
 
 ' You're about right there. I was let off early, and 
 got a walk out Ramsbottom way with a fellow. 1 
 hadn't stretched my legs for two months, and — I'll 
 confess to you, Daddy — that when we got down from 
 the moor, I was — overtaken — as the pious people say — 
 by a mutton chop.' 
 
 The lad looked up at him laughing. Daddy sur- 
 veyed him with chagrin.
 
 YOUTH 259 
 
 ' I knew you were a worthless lukewarm sort of a 
 creature. Flesh-eating 's as bad as drink for them 
 that have got it in 'em. It 11 come out. Well, go 
 your ways ! YovUll never be Prime iMinister.' 
 
 ' Don't distress yourself, Daddy. As long as marrow 
 pies are good, I shall eat 'em — you may count on that. 
 What's that cheese affair down there ? ' and he pointed 
 towards the last item but one in the bill of fare. In- 
 stead of answering, the old man turned on his seat, 
 and called to one of the waitresses near. In a second 
 David had a ' Cheese 'Ticement ' before him, at which 
 he peered curiously. Daddy watched him, not without 
 some signs of nervousness. 
 
 ' Daddy,' said David calmly looking up, ' when I 
 last saw this article it was called " Welsh rabbit." ' 
 
 ' Davy, you've no soul for fine distinctions,' said the 
 other hastily. ' Change the subject. How have my 
 dear brother-in-law and you been hitting it off lately ? ' 
 David went on with his ' 'Ticement,' the corners of 
 his mouth twitching, for a minute or so, then he raised 
 his head and slowly shook it, looking Daddy in the face. 
 ^ We shall bear up when we say good-bye. Daddy, 
 and I don't think that crisis is far off. It would have 
 come long ago, only I do happen to know a provoking 
 deal more about books than any assistant he ever had 
 before. Last week I picked him up a copy of " Bells 
 and Pomegranates " for one and nine, and he sold it 
 next day for two pound sixteen. There's business for 
 you, Daddy. That put off our bi'each at least a fortnight, 
 
 b 2
 
 26o THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 but unless I discover a first folio of Shakespeare for 
 sixpence between now and then, I don't see what's to 
 postpone the agony after that — and if I did I should 
 probably speculate in it myself. No, Daddy, it's coming 
 to the point, as the tiger said when he reached the last 
 joint of the cow's tail. And it's your fault.' 
 
 ' My fault, Davy,' said Lomax, half tremulous, half 
 delighted, drawing a chair close up to the table that he 
 might lose nothing of the youth's confidences. ' What 
 d'ye mean by that, ye spalpeen ? ' 
 
 ' Well, wasn't it you took me to the Hall of Science, 
 Daddy, and couldn't keep a quiet tongue in your head 
 about it afterwards? Wasn't it you lent me the 
 " Secularist," which got me into the worst rumpus of 
 the season ? Oh, Daddy, you're a bad un ! ' 
 
 And the handsome lad leant back in his chair, 
 stretching his long legs and studying Daddy with 
 twinkling eyes. As for Lomax, he received the 
 onslaught with a curious mixture of expressions, in 
 which a certain malicious pleasure, crossed by an 
 uneasy sense of responsibility, was the most prominent. 
 He sat drumming on the table, his straggling beard 
 falling forward on to his chest, his mouth pursing 
 itself up. At last he threw back his head with energy. 
 
 ' I'll not excuse myself, Davy ; you're well out of it. 
 You'll be a great man yet — always provided you can 
 manage yourself in the matter of flesh meat. It was 
 to come one way or the other — you couldn't put up 
 much longer with such a puke-stocking as my precious
 
 YOUTH 261 
 
 brother-in-law. (That's one of the great points of Shake- 
 speare, Davy, my lad — perhaps you haven't noticed it — 
 you get such a ruck of bad names out of him for the 
 asking! Puke-stocking is good — real good. If it 
 wasn't made for a sanctimonious hypocrite of a Baptist 
 like Purcell it ought to have been.) And " Spanish- 
 pouch" too! Oh, I love "Spanish-pouch"! When 
 I've called a man '' Spanish-pouch," I'm the better for 
 it, Davy — the bile's relieved.' 
 
 ' Thank you, Daddy ; I'll remember the receipt. I 
 say, were you ever in Purcell's shop ? ' 
 
 ' Purcell's shop ? Why, of course I was, you varmint ! 
 Wasn't it there I met my Isabella, his sister ? Ah, 
 the poor thing ! He led her a life ; and when I was 
 his assistant I took sides with her — that was the begin- 
 ning of it all. At first we hadn't got on so badly — I 
 had a pious fit on myself in those days — but one day at 
 tea, I had been making free — taking Isabella's part. 
 There had been a neighbour there, and the laugh had 
 been against him. Well, after tea we marched back to 
 the shop, and says he to me, as black as thunder, " I'm 
 quite willing, Lomax, to be your Christian brother in 
 here : when we're in society I'd have you remember it's 
 different. You should know your place." " Oh, should 
 I ? " says I. (Isabella had been squeezing my hand 
 under the table and I didn't care what I said.) " Well, 
 
 you'd better find some one as will, and be d d to 
 
 your Christian brotherhood." And I took my cap up 
 and marched out, leaving him struck a pillar of salt
 
 262 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 with surprise, and tliat mad ! — for we were in the 
 middle of issuing the New Year's catalogue, and he'd 
 left most of it to me. And three weeks after ' 
 
 Daddy rose quivering with excitement, put his 
 thumbs into his waistcoat pocket, and bent over the 
 back of his chair towards David. As he stood there, 
 on tip-toe, the flaps of the long coat falling back from 
 him like wings, his skull-cap slightly awry, two red 
 sjDots on either wrinkled cheek, and every feature of the 
 sharp brown face alive with the joy of his long-past 
 vengeance, he was like some strange perching bird. 
 
 ' — Three weeks after, Davy, I married my Isabella 
 under his puritanical nose, at the chapel across the way ; 
 and the bit of spite in it — bedad ! — it was like mustard 
 to beef. (Pish ! what am I about !) And I set up 
 shop almost next door to the chapel, and took the trade 
 out of his mouth, and enjoyed myself finely for six 
 months. At the end of that time he gave out that 
 the neighbourhood was too "low" for him, and he 
 moved up town. And though I've been half over the 
 world since, I've never ceased to keep an eye on him. 
 I've had a finger in more pies of his than he thinks 
 for ! ' 
 
 And Daddy drew himself up, pressing his hands 
 against his sides, his long frame swelling out, as it 
 seemed, with sudden passion. David watched him with 
 a look half sympathetic, half satirical. 
 
 ' I don't see that he did you much harm. Daddy.' 
 
 ' Harm ! ' said the little man, irascibly. ' Harm !
 
 YOUTH 263 
 
 I must say you're uncommon slow at gripping a situation 
 Davy. I'd my wife's score to settle, too, I tell you, as 
 well as my own. He'd sat on his poor easy-going 
 sister till she hadn't a feature left. I knew he had. 
 He's made up of all the mean vices — and at the same 
 time, if you were to hear him at a prayer meeting, 
 you'd think that since Enoch went up to heaven the 
 wrong way, the world didn't happen to have been 
 blessed with another saint to match Tom Purcell.' And 
 stirred by his own eloquence, Daddy looked down 
 frowning on the youth before him. 
 
 ^ What made you give up the book-trade, Daddy ? ' 
 asked David, with a smile. 
 
 It was like the pricking of a bladder. Daddy 
 collapsed in a moment. Sitting down again, he beo-an 
 to arrange his coat elaborately over his knees, as 
 though to gain time. 
 
 ' David, you're an inquisitive varmint,' he said at last, 
 looking up askance at his companion. ' Some one's 
 been telling you tales, by the look of you. Look here — 
 if Tom Purcell's a blathering hypocrite, that is not the 
 same thing precisely as saying that Adrian O'Connor 
 Lomax is a perfect specimen of the domestic virtues. 
 Never you mind, my boy, what made me give up book- 
 selling. I've chucked so many things overboard since, 
 that it's hardly worth inquiring. Try any trade you 
 like and Daddy '11 be able to give you some advice in 
 it — that's the only thing that concerns you. Well now, 
 tell me — ' and he turned round and put his elbows on
 
 264 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 the table, leaning over to David — 'When are you 
 coming away, and what are your prospects ? ' 
 
 ' I told you about a fortnight would see it out. 
 
 Daddy. And there's a little shop in But it's no 
 
 good, Daddy. You can't keep secrets.' 
 
 The old man turned pui-ple, drew himself up, and 
 looked fiercely at David from behind his spectacles. 
 But in a second his mood changed and he stretched his 
 hand slowly out across the table. 
 
 ' On the honour of a Lomax,' he said solemnly. 
 
 There was a real dignity about the absurd action 
 which melted David. He shook the hand and repented 
 him. Leaning over he whispered some information in 
 Daddy's ear. Daddy beamed. And in the midst of 
 the superfluity of nods and winks that followed David 
 called for his bill. 
 
 The action recalled Daddy to his own affairs, and he 
 looked on complacently while David paid. 
 
 ' 'Pon my word, Davy, I can hardly yet believe in 
 my own genius. Where else, my boy, in this cotton- 
 spinning hole, would you find a dinner like that for 
 sixpence ? Am I a benefactor to the species, sir, or am 
 I not ? ' 
 
 ' Looks like it. Daddy, by the help of Miss Dora.' 
 
 ' Aye, aye,' said the old man testily, — ' I'll not 
 deny that Dora's useful to the business. But the 
 inspiration, Davy, 's all mine. You want genius, my 
 boy, to make a tomfool of yourself like this,' and 
 he looked himself proudly up and down. ' Twenty
 
 YOUTH 265 
 
 customers a week come here for nothing in the world 
 but to see what new rigs Daddy may be up to. The 
 invention — the happy ideas, man, I throw into one day 
 of this place would stock twenty ordinary businesses.' 
 
 ' All the same, Daddy, I've tasted Welsh rabbit 
 before,' said David drily, putting on his hat. 
 
 'I scorn your remark, sir. It argues a poorly 
 furnished mind. Show me anything new in this used- 
 up world, eh ? but for the name and the dishing up — 
 Well, good-bye, Davy, and good luck to you ! ' 
 
 David made his way across Hanging Ditch to a 
 little row of houses bearing the baldly appropriate 
 name of Half Street. It ran along the eastern side of 
 the Cathedral close. First came the houses, small, 
 irregular, with old beams and projections here and 
 there, then a paved footway, then the railings round 
 the Close. In full view of the windows of the street 
 rose the sixteenth-century church which plays as best 
 it can the part of Cathedral to Manchester. Round it 
 stretched a black and desolate space paved with tomb- 
 stones. Not a blade of grass broke the melancholy of 
 those begrimed and time-worn slabs. The rain lay 
 among them in pools, squalid buildings overlooked 
 them, and the church, with its manifest inadequacy to 
 a fine site and a great city, did but little towards 
 overcoming the mean and harsh impression made — on 
 such a day especially — by its surroundings.
 
 266 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 David opened tlie door of a shop about halfway up 
 the row. A bell rang sharply, and as he shut the 
 outer door behind him, another at the back of the shop 
 opened hastily, and a young girl came in. 
 
 ' Mr. Grieve, father's gone out to Eccles to see 
 some books a gentleman wants him to buy. If 
 Mr. Stephens comes, you're to tell him father's found 
 him two or three more out of the list he sent. You 
 know where all his books are put together, if he wants 
 to see them, father says.' 
 
 * Yes, thank you, Miss Purcell, I do. No other 
 message ? ' 
 
 ' No.' The speaker lingered. ' What time do we 
 start for the music to-night ? But you'll be down to 
 tea?' 
 
 ' Certainly, if you and Miss Dora don't want it to 
 yourselves.' The speaker smiled. He was leaning on 
 the counter, while the girl stood behind it. 
 
 ' Oh dear, no ! ' said Miss Purcell with a half-pettish 
 gesture. ' I don't know what to talk to Dora about 
 now. She thinks of nothing but St. Damian's and her 
 work. It's worse than father. And, of course, I know 
 she hasn't much opinion of me. Indeed, she's always 
 telling me so — well, not exactly — but she lets me 
 guess fast enough.' 
 
 The speaker put up two small hands to straighten 
 some of the elaborate curls and twists with which her 
 pretty head was crowned. There was a little conscious- 
 ness in the action. The thought of her cousin had
 
 YOUTH 267 
 
 evidently brought with it the thought of some of those 
 things of which the stern Dora disapproved. 
 
 David looked at the brown hair and the slim fingers 
 as he was meant to look at them. Yet in his smiling 
 good humour there was not a trace of bash fulness or 
 diffidence. He was perfectly at his ease, with some- 
 thing of a proud self-reliant consciousness in every 
 movement ; nothing in his manner could have reminded 
 a spectator of the traditional apprentice making timid 
 love to his master's daughter. 
 
 ' I've seen you stand up to her though,' he said 
 laughing. ' It's like all pious people. Doesn't it 
 strike you as odd that they should never be content 
 with being pious for themselves ? ' 
 
 He looked at her with bright sarcastic eyes. 
 
 ' Oh, I know what you mean ! ' she said with an 
 instant change of tone ; ' I didn't mean anything of 
 the sort. I think it's shocking of you to go to that 
 place on Sundays — so there, Mr. Grieve.' 
 
 She threw herself back defiantly against the books 
 which walled the shop, her arms folded before her. 
 The attitude showed the long throat, the rounded bust, 
 and the slender waist compressed with some evident 
 rigour into a close-fitting brown dress. That Miss 
 Purcell thought a great deal of the fashion of her hair, 
 the style of her bodices, and the size of her waist was 
 clear ; that she was conscious of thinking about them 
 to good purpose was also plain. But on the whole the 
 impression of artificiality, of something over-studied
 
 268 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 and over-done which the first sight of her generally- 
 awakened, was soon, as a rule, lost in another more 
 attractive — in one of light, tripping youth, perfectly 
 satisfied with itself and with the world. 
 
 ' I don't think you know much about the place,' he 
 said quietly, still smiling. 
 
 She flushed, her foolish little sense of natural 
 superiority to ' the assistant ' outraged again, as it had 
 been outraged already a hundred times since she and 
 David Grieve had met. 
 
 ' I know quite as much as anybody need know — any 
 respectable person — ' she maintained angrily. ' It's a 
 low, disgraceful place — and they talk wicked nonsense. 
 Everyone says so. It doesn't matter a bit where 
 Uncle Lomax goes — he's mad — but it is a shame he 
 should lead other people astray.' 
 
 She was much pleased with her own harangue, and 
 stood there frowning on him, her sharp little chin in 
 the air, one foot beating the ground. 
 
 ' Well, yes, really,' said David in a reflective tone ; 
 *one would think Miss Dora had her hands full at 
 home, without ' 
 
 He looked up, significantly, smiling. Lucy Purcell 
 was enraged with him — with his hypocritical sympathy 
 as to her uncle's misdoings — his avoidance of his own 
 crime. 
 
 ' It's not uncle at all, it's you ! ' she cried, with 
 more logic than appeared. ' I tell you, Mr. Grieve, 
 father won't stand it.'
 
 YOUTH 269 
 
 The young man drew himself ujd from the counter. 
 
 ^ No,' he said with great equanimity, ' I suppose not.' 
 
 And taking up a parcel of books from the counter 
 lie turned away. Lucy, flurried and pouting, called 
 after him. 
 
 ' Mr. Grieve ! ' 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 ' I — I didn't mean it. I lioj)e you won't go. I 
 know father's hard. He's hard enough with me.' 
 
 And she raised her hands to her flushed face. 
 David was terribly afraid she was going to cry. 
 Several times since the orphan girl of seventeen had 
 arrived from school three months before to take her 
 place in her father's house, had she been on the point 
 of confiding her domestic woes to David Grieve. But 
 though under the terms of his agreement with her 
 father, which included one meal in the back parlour, 
 the assistant and she were often thrown together, he 
 had till now instinctively held her aloof. His extra- 
 ordinary good looks and masterful energetic ways had 
 made an impression on her schoolgirl mind from the 
 beginning. But for him she had no magnetism what- 
 ever. The little self-conceited creature knew it, or 
 partially knew it, and smarted under it. 
 
 Now, he was just beginning an awkward sentence, 
 when there was a sound at the outer door. With 
 another look at him, half shy, half appealing, Lucy 
 fled. Conscious of a distinct feeling of relief, David 
 went to attend to the customer.
 
 270 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 The customer was soon content and went out again 
 into the rain. David mounted a winding iron stair 
 which connected the downstairs shop with an upper 
 room in which a large proportion of the books were 
 stored. It was a long, low, rambling place made by 
 throwing together all the little bits of rooms on the 
 first floor of the old house. One corner of it had a 
 special attraction for David. It was the corner where, 
 ranged partly on the floor, partly on the shelves 
 which ran under the windows, lay the collection of 
 books that Purcell had been making for his customer, 
 Mr. Stephens. 
 
 Out of that collection Purcell's assistant had ex- 
 tracted a very varied entertainment. In the first place 
 it had amused him to watch the laborious pains and 
 anxiety with which his pious employer had gathered 
 together the very sceptical works of which Mr. Stephens 
 was in want, showing a knowledge of contents, and 
 editions, and out-of-the-way profanities, under the 
 stimulus of a paying customer, which drew many a 
 sudden laugh from David when he was left to think of 
 it in private.
 
 YOUTH 271 
 
 In the next place the books themselves had been a 
 perpetual feast to him for weeks, enjoyed all the more 
 keenly because of the secrecy in which it had to be 
 devoured. The little gathering represented with fair 
 completeness the chief books of the French ' philo- 
 sophers,' both in the original French, and in those 
 English translations of which so plentiful a crop made 
 its appearance during the fifty years before and after 
 1800. There, for instance, lay the seventy volumes of 
 Voltaire. Close by was an imperfect copy of the 
 Encyclopgedia, which Mr. Stephens was getting cheap ; 
 on the other side a motley gathering of Diderot and 
 Rousseau ; while Holbach's ' System of Nature,' and 
 Helvetius ' On the Mind,' held their rightful place 
 among the rest. 
 
 Through these books, then, which had now been on 
 the premises for some time — Mr. Stephens being a 
 person of uncertain domicile, and unable as yet to find 
 them a home — David had been freely ranging. When- 
 ever Purcell was out of the way and customers were 
 slack, he invariably found his way to this spot in the 
 upper room. There, with his elbows on the top of the 
 bookcase which ran under the window, and a book in 
 front of him — or generally two, the original French 
 and a translation — he had read Voltaire's tales, a great 
 deal of the Encyclopaedia, a certain amount of Diderot, 
 for whom he cherished a passionate admiration, and a 
 much smaller smattering of Rousseau. At the present 
 moment he was grappling with the ' Dictionnaire
 
 272 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 Philosophique/ and the ' Systeme de la Nature,' fortified 
 in both cases by English versions. 
 
 The gloom of the afternoon deepened, and the 
 increasing rain had thinned the streets so much that 
 during a couple of hours David had but three summonses 
 from below to attend to. For the rest of the time he 
 was buried in the second volume of the ' Dictionnaire 
 Philosophique,' now skipping freely, now chewing and 
 digesting, his eyes fixed vacantly on the darkening 
 church outside. Above all, the article on Contradictions 
 had absorbed and delighted him. There are few tones 
 in themselves so fascinating to the nascent literary 
 sense as this mock humility tone of Voltaire's. And 
 in David's case all that passionate sense of a broken 
 bubble and a scattered dream, which had haunted him 
 so long after he left Kinder, had entered into and 
 helped forward his infatuation with his new masters. 
 They brought him an indescribable sense of freedom — 
 omniscience almost. 
 
 For instance : — 
 
 'We must carefully distinguish in all writings, and 
 especially in the sacred books, between real and apparent 
 contradictions. Venturous critics have supposed a contra- 
 diction existed in that passage of Scripture which narrates 
 how Moses changed all the waters of Egypt into blood, and 
 how immediately afterwards the magicians of Pharaoh did 
 the same thing, the book of Exodus allowing no interval 
 at all between the miracle of Moses and the magical 
 operation of the enchanters. Certainly it seems at first 
 sight impossible that these magicians should change into
 
 YOUTH 
 
 273 
 
 blood what was already blood ; but this difficulty may be 
 avoided by supposing that Moses had allowed the waters 
 to reassume their proper nature, in order to give time to 
 Pharaoh to recover himself. This supposition is all the 
 more plausible, seeing that the text, if it does not favour 
 it expressly, is not opposed to it. 
 
 ' The same sceptics ask how when all the horses had 
 been killed by the hail in the sixth plague Pharaoh could 
 pursue the Jews with cavalry. But this contradiction is 
 not even apparent, because the hail, which killed all the 
 horses in the fields, could not fall upon those which were in 
 the stables.' 
 
 And so on through a long series of paragraphs, 
 leading at last to matters specially dear to the wit of 
 Voltaire, the contradictions between St. Luke and St. 
 »Matthew — in the story of the census of Quirinns, of 
 the Magi, of the massacre of the Innocents, and what 
 not— and culminating in this innocent conclusion : — 
 
 * After all it is enough that God should have deigned to 
 reveal to us the principal mysteries of the faith, and that 
 He should have instituted a Church in the course of time 
 to explain them. All these contradictions, so often and so 
 bitterly brought up against the Gospels, are amply noticed 
 by the wisest commentators ; far from harming each other, 
 one explains another ; they lend each other a mutual sup- 
 port, both in the concordance and in the harmony of the 
 four Gospels.' 
 
 David threw back his head with a laugh which 
 came from the very depths of him. Then, suddenly, he 
 was conscious of the church standing sombrely without, 
 VOL. T. T
 
 274 '^HE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 spectator as it seemed of his thouglits and of his mirth. 
 Instantly his youth met the challenge by a rise of pas- 
 sionate scorn ! What ! a hundred years since Voltaire, 
 and mankind still went on believing in all these follies 
 and fables, in the ten plagues, in Balaam's ass, in 
 the walls of Jericho, in miraculous births, and Magi, 
 and prophetic stars ! — in everything that the mockery 
 of the eighteenth century had slain a thousand times 
 over. Ah, well ! — Voltaire knew as well as anybody 
 that superstition is perennial, insatiable — a disease and 
 weakness of the human mind which seems to be in- 
 herent and ineradicable. And there rose in the boy's 
 memory lines he had opened upon that morning in a 
 small Elizabethan folio he had been cataloguing with 
 much pains as a rarity — lines which had stuck in his 
 
 mind — 
 
 Vast superstition I glorious style of weakness, 
 Sprung from the deep disquiet of man's passion 
 To dissolution and despair of Nature ! — 
 
 He flung them out at the dark mass of building oppo- 
 site, as though he were his namesake flinging at Goliath. 
 Only a few months before that great church had changed 
 masters — had passed from the hands of an aristocratic 
 and inaccessible bishop of the old school into those of 
 a man rich in all modern ideas and capacities, full of 
 energy and enthusiasm, a scholar and administrator 
 both. And lie believed all those absurdities, David 
 wanted to know ? Impossible ! No honest man could, 
 thought the lad defiantly, with the rising colour of
 
 YOUTH 275 
 
 crude and vehement feeling, when his attention had 
 been once challenged, and he had developed mind 
 enough to know what the challenge meant. 
 
 Except, perhaps, Uncle Reuben and Dora Lomax, 
 and people like that. He stood thinking and staring 
 out of window, one idea leading to another. The thought 
 of Reuben brought with it a certain softening of mood 
 — the softening of memory and old association. Yes, 
 he would like to see Uncle Reuben again — explain to 
 him, perhaps, that old story — so old, so distant ! — of his 
 running away. Well, he v'ould see him again, as ?oon 
 as he got a place of his own, which couldn't be long 
 now, whether Purcell gave him the sack or not. In- 
 stinctively, he felt for that inner pocket, which held his 
 purse and his savings-bank book. Yes, he was near 
 freedom now, whatever happened ! 
 
 Then it occurred to him that it was unlucky he 
 should have stumbled across Mr. Ancrum just at this 
 particular juncture. The minister, of course, had friends 
 at Clough End still. And he, David, didn't want Louie 
 down upon him just yet — not just yet — for a month or 
 two. 
 
 Then the smile which had begun to play about 
 the mouth suddenly broadened into a merry triumph. 
 When Louie knew all about him and his contrivances 
 these last four years, wouldn't she be mad ! If she 
 were to appear at this moment, he could tell her that 
 she wore a pink dress at the ' wake ' last week, — when 
 she was at chapel last, — what young men were supposed 
 
 T 2
 
 276 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 to be courting her since the summer, and a number of 
 other interesting particulars 
 
 ' Mr. Grieve ! Tea ! ' 
 
 His face changed. Reluctantly shutting his book 
 and putting it into its place, he took his way to the 
 staircase. 
 
 As David opened the swing door leading to the 
 Purcells' parlour at the back of the shop he heard 
 Miss Purcell saying in a mournful voice, ' It's no good, 
 Dora ; not a haporth of good. Father won't let me. 
 I might as well have gone to prison as come home.' 
 
 The assistant emerged into the bright gaslight of 
 the little room as she spoke. There was another girl 
 sitting beside Lucy, who got up with a shy manner and 
 shook hands with him. 
 
 ' Will you take your tea, Mr. Grieve ? ' said Lucy, 
 with a pettish sigh, handing it to him, and then throw- 
 ing herself vehemently back in her hostess's chair, behind 
 the tea-tray. She let her hands hang over the arms 
 of it — the picture of discontent. The gaslight showed 
 her the possessor of bright brown eyes, under fine 
 brows slenderly but clearly marked, of a pink and 
 white skin slightly freckled, of a small nose quite pass- 
 able, but no ways remarkable, of a dainty little chin, 
 and a thin-lipped mouth, slightly raised at one comer, 
 and opening readily over some irregular but very white 
 teeth. Except for the eyes and eyebrows the features 
 could claim nothing much iii the way of beauty. Yet 
 at this moment of seventeen — thanks to her clear
 
 YOUTH 277 
 
 colours, her small thinness, and the beautiful hair so 
 richly piled about her delicate head — Lucy Purcell was 
 undeniably a pretty girl, and since her arrival in Man- 
 chester she had been much more blissfully certain of the 
 fact than she had ever succeeded in being while she was 
 still under the repressive roof of Miss Pym's boarding- 
 school for young ladies, Pestalozzi House, Blackburn. 
 
 David sat down, perceiving that something had gone 
 very wrong, but not caring to inquire into it. His 
 whole interest in the Purcell household was, in fact, 
 dying out. He would not be concerned with it much 
 longer. 
 
 So that, instead of investigating Miss Purcell's 
 griefs, he asked her cousin whether it had not come on 
 to rain. The girl opposite replied in a quiet, musical 
 voice. She was plainly dressed in a black hat and 
 jacket ; but the hat had a little bunch of cowslips to 
 light it up, and the jacket was of an ordinary fashionable 
 cut. There was nothing particularly noticeable about 
 the face at first sight, except its soft fairness and the 
 gentle steadfastness of the eyes. The movements were 
 timid, the speech often hesitating. Yet the impression 
 which, on a first meeting, this timidity was apt to leave 
 on a spectator was very seldom a lasting one. David's 
 idea of Miss Lomax, for instance, had radically changed 
 during the three months since he had made acquaintance 
 with her. 
 
 Rain, it appeared, had begun, and there must be 
 umbrellas and waterproofs for the evening's excursion. 
 As the two others were settling at what time David
 
 278 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 Grieve and Lucy should call for Dora in Market Place, 
 Lucy woke up from a dream, and broke in upon them. 
 
 ' And, Dora, you know, I could have worn that dress 
 with the narrow ribbons I showed you last week. It's 
 all there — upstairs — in the cupboard — not a crease in 
 it!' 
 
 Dora could not help laughing, and the laugh sent a 
 charming light into her grey, veiled eyes. The tone 
 was so inexpressibly doleful, the manner so childish. 
 David smiled too, and his eyes and Dora's met in a 
 sort of friendly understanding — the first time, perhaps, 
 they had so met. Then they both turned themselves 
 to the task of consolation. The assistant inquired what 
 was the matter. 
 
 ' I wanted her to go with me to the dance at the 
 Mechanics' Institute next week,' said Dora. ' Mrs. Al- 
 derman Head would have taken us both. It's very 
 nice and respectable. I didn't think uncle would mind. 
 But Lucy 's sure he will.' 
 
 ' Sure ! Of course, I'm sure,' said Lucy sharply. 
 ^ I've heard him talk about dancing in a way to make 
 anybody sick. If he only knew all the dancing we 
 had at Pestalozzi House ! ' 
 
 ' Does he think all dancing wrong ? ' inquired 
 David. 
 
 * Yes — unless it's David dancing before the Ark, or 
 some such nonsense,' replied Lucy, with the same petu- 
 lant gloom. 
 
 David laughed out. Then he fell into a brown study,
 
 YOUTH 279 
 
 one hand playing with his tea-cup, an irrepressible 
 smile still curving about his mouth. Dora, observing 
 him across the table, could not but remember other 
 assistants of Uncle Purcell whom she had seen sitting 
 in that same place, and the airs which Miss Purcell in 
 her rare holidays had given herself towards those earlier 
 young men. And now, this young man, whenever 
 Purcell himself was out of the way, was master of the 
 place. Anyone could see that, so long as he was 
 there, Lucy was sensitively conscious of him in all that 
 she said or did. 
 
 She did not long endure his half-mocking silence 
 now. 
 
 ' You see, Dora,' she began again, with an angry 
 glance towards him, ' father's worse than ever just now. 
 He's been so aggravated.' 
 
 ' Yes,' said Dora timidly. She perfectly understood 
 what was meant, but she shrank from pursuing the 
 subject. But David looked up. 
 
 * I should be very sorry, Pm sure, Miss Purcell, to 
 get in your way at all, or cause you any unpleasantness, 
 if that's what you mean. I don't think you'll be an- 
 noyed with me long.' 
 
 He spoke with a boyish exaggerated dignity. It 
 became him, however, for his fine and subtle physique 
 somehow supported and endorsed it. 
 
 Both the girls started. Lucy looked suddenly as 
 miserable as she had before looked angry. But in her 
 confused state of feeling she renewed her attack.
 
 28o THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 ' I don't understand anything about it,' she said, 
 with plaintive incoherence. ' Only I can't thinh why 
 people should always be making disturbances. Dora ! 
 Doesn't everybody you know think it wicked to go to the 
 Hall of Science ? ' 
 
 She drew herself up peremptorily. David resumed 
 the half smiling, half meditative attitude which had 
 provoked her before. Dora looked from one to the 
 other, a pure bright colour rising in her cheek. 
 
 * I don't know anything about that,' she said in a 
 low voice. ' I don't think that would matter, Lucy. 
 But, oh, I do wish father wouldn't go — and Mr. Grieve 
 wouldn't go.' 
 
 Her voice and hand shook. Lucy looked triumph- 
 antly at David. Instinctively she realised that, especially 
 of late, David had come to feel more respectfully towards 
 Dora than she had ever succeeded in making him feel 
 towards herself. In the beginning of their acquaintance 
 he had often launched into argument with Dora about 
 religious matters, especially about the Ritualistic prac- 
 tices in which she delighted. The lad, overflowing 
 with his Voltaire and d'Holbach, had not been able to 
 forbear, and had apparently taken a mischievous pleasure 
 in shocking a bigot — as he had originally conceived 
 Lucy Purcell's cousin to be. The discussion, indeed, 
 had not gone very far. The girl's horror and his own 
 sense of his position and its diflficulties had checked 
 them in the germ. Moreover, as has been said, his 
 conception of Dora had gradually changed on further
 
 YOUTH 281 
 
 acquaintance. As for her, she had now for a long time 
 avoided arguing with him, which made her outburst on 
 the present occasion the more noticeable. 
 
 He looked up quickly. 
 
 ' Miss Lomax, how do you suppose one makes up 
 one's mind — either about religion or anything else ? 
 Isn't it by hearing both sides ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, no — no ! ' she said, shrinking. ' Religion isn't 
 like anything else. It's by — by growing up into it — 
 by thinking about it — and doing what the Church tells 
 you. You come to linoiv it's true.' 
 
 That the Magi and Balaam's ass are true ! "What 
 folly! But somehow even his youthful ardour could 
 not say it, so full of pure and tremulous pain was the 
 gaze fixed upon him. And, indeed, he had no time for 
 any answer, for she had just spoken when the bell of 
 the outer door sounded, and a step came rapidly through 
 the shop. 
 
 ' Father ! ' said Lucy, lifting the lid of the teapot 
 in a great hurry. ' Oh, I wonder if the tea's good 
 enough.' 
 
 She was stirring it anxiously with a spoon, when 
 Purcell entered, a tall heavily built man, with black 
 hair, a look of command, and a step which shook 
 the little back room as he descended into it. He 
 touched Dora's hand with a pompous politeness, and 
 then subsided into his chair opposite Lucy, com- 
 plaining about the weather, and demanding tea, which 
 his daughter gave him with a timid haste, looking
 
 282 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 to see whether he were satisfied as he raised the first 
 spoonful to his lips. 
 
 ' Anything worth buying ? ' said David to his em- 
 ployer. He was leaning back in his chair, with his 
 arm round the back of another. Again Dora was 
 reminded by contrast of some of the nervous lads she 
 had seen in that room before, scarcely daring to eat 
 their tea under Purcell's eye, flying to cut him bread, 
 or pass him the sugar. 
 
 'No.' said Purcell curtly. 
 
 ' And a great price, I suppose ? ' 
 
 Purcell looked up. Apparently the ease of the 
 young man's tone and attitude put the finishing stroke 
 to an inward process already far advanced. 
 
 'The price, I conceive, is my business,' he said, in 
 his most overbearing manner. ' When you have to pay, 
 it will be yours.' 
 
 David flushed, without, however, changing his 
 position, and Lucy made a sudden commotion among 
 the teacups. 
 
 ' Father,' she said, with a hurried agitation which 
 hardly allowed her to pick up the cup she had thrown 
 over, ' Dora and I want to speak to you. You mustn't 
 talk business at tea. Oh, I 'know you won't let me go ; 
 but I should like it, and Dora's come to ask. I 
 shouldn't want a new dress, and it will be most 
 respectable, everyone says ; and I did learn dancing 
 at school, though you didn't know it. Miss Georgina 
 said it was stuff" and nonsense, and I must '
 
 YOUTH 283 
 
 '• What is she talking about ? ' said Purcell to Dora, 
 with an angry glance at Lucy. 
 
 '• I want to take her to a dance,' said Dora quietly, 
 ' if you would let her come. There's one at the 
 Mechanics' Institute next week, given by the Unicorn 
 benefit society. Mrs. Alderman Head said I might go 
 with her, and Lucy too if you'll let her come. I've 
 got a ticket.' 
 
 ' I'm much obliged to Mrs. Alderman Head,' said 
 Purcell sarcastically. ' Lucy knows very well what 
 I think of an unchristian and immodest amusement. 
 Other people must decide according to their conscience, 
 /judge nobody.' 
 
 At this point David got up, and disappeared into 
 the shop. 
 
 ' Oh yes, you do judge, uncle,' cried Dora, roused 
 at last, and colouring. ' You're always judging. You 
 call everything unchristian you don't like, whether it's 
 dancing, or — or — early celebration, or organ music, 
 or altar-cloths. But you can't be always right — 
 nobody can.' 
 
 Purcell surveyed her with a grim composure. 
 ' If you suppose I make any pretence to be infallible, 
 you are quite mistaken,' he said, with slow solemnity — 
 no one in disclaiming Papistry could have been more the 
 Pope — ' I leave that to your priests at St. Damian's, 
 Dora. But there is an infallible guide, both for you 
 and for me, and that's the Holy Scriptures. If you 
 can show me any place where the Bihle approves of
 
 284 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 promiscuous dancing between young Christian men and 
 women, or of a woman exposing her person for ad- 
 miration's sake, or of such vain and idle talking as is 
 produced by these entertainments, I will let Lucy go. 
 But you can't. " Whose adorning let it not be " ' 
 
 And he quoted the Petrine admonition with a 
 harsh triumphant emphasis on every syllable, looking 
 hard all the time at Dora, who had risen, and stood 
 confronting him in a tremor of impatience and dis- 
 agreement. 
 
 * Father Russell — ' she began quickly, then changed 
 her form of expression — ' Mr. Russell says you can't 
 settle things by just quoting a text. The Bible has to 
 be explained, he says.' 
 
 Purcell's eyes flamed. He launched into a sarcastic 
 harangue, delivered in a strong thick voice, on the 
 subject of ' Sacerdotalism,' ' priestly arrogance,' ' lying 
 traditions,' ' making the command of God of no effect,' 
 and so forth. While his sermon rolled along, Dora 
 stood nervously tying her bonnet strings, or buttoning 
 her gloves. Her heart was full of a passionate scorn. 
 Beside the bookseller's muscular figure and pugnacious 
 head she saw with her mind's eye the spare forms and 
 careworn faces of the young priests at St. Damian's. 
 Outraged by this loud-voiced assurance, she called to 
 mind the gentleness, the suavity, the delicate considera- 
 tion for women which obtained among her friends. 
 
 ' There's not a pin to choose,' Purcell wound up, 
 brutally, ' between you and that young infidel in there,'
 
 YOUTH 285 
 
 and he jerked his thumb towards the shop. ' It all 
 comes of pride. He's bursting with his own wisdom, 
 — you will have the " Church " and won't have the Bible. 
 What's the Church ! — a pack of sinners, and a million 
 sinners are no better than one.' 
 
 ' Good-bye, Lucy,' said Dora, stooping to kiss her 
 cousin, and not trusting herself to speak. ' Call for me 
 at the quarter.' 
 
 Lucy hardly noticed her kiss, she sat with her 
 elbows on the table, holding her little chin disconso- 
 lately, something very like tears in her eyes. In the 
 first place, she was reflecting dolefully that it was all 
 true — she was never to have any amusement like other 
 girls — never to have any good of her life ; she might as 
 well be a nun at once. In the second, she was certain 
 her father meant to send young Grieve away, and the 
 prospect drew a still darker pall over a prospect dark 
 enough in all conscience before. 
 
 Purcell opened the door for Dora more punctiliously 
 than usual, and came back to the hearthrug still inflated 
 as it were with his own eloquence. Meanwhile Lucy 
 was washing up the tea things. The little servant had 
 brought her a bowl of water and an apron, and Lucy 
 was going gingerly through an operation she detested. 
 Why shouldn't Mary Ann do it ? What was the good of 
 going to school and coming back with Claribel's songs 
 and Blumenthal's Deux Anges lying on the top of your 
 box, — with a social education, moreover, so advanced 
 that the dancing-mistress had invariably made you
 
 286 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 waltz alone round the room for the edification and in- 
 struction of the assembled company, — if all you had to 
 do at home was to dust and wash up, and die with envy 
 of girls with reprobate fathers ? As she pondered the 
 question, Lucy began to handle the cups with a more 
 and more unfriendly energy. 
 
 ' You'll break some of that china, Lucy ! ' said 
 Purcell, at last disturbed in his thoughts. ' What's the 
 matter with you ? ' 
 
 ' Nothing ! ' said Lucy, taking, however, a saucer 
 from the line as she spoke so viciously that the rest 
 of them slipped with a clatter and only just escaped 
 destruction. 
 
 'Mind what you're about,' cried Purcell angrily, 
 fearing for the household stuff that had been in the 
 establishment so much longer and was so much more 
 at home there than Lucy. 
 
 ' I know what it is,' he said, looking at her severely, 
 while his great black presence seemed to fill the little 
 room. ' You've lost your temper because I refused to 
 let you go to the dance.' 
 
 Lucy was silent for a moment, trying to contain 
 herself; then she broke out like a child, throwing down 
 her apron, and feeling for her handkerchief. 
 
 ' It's too bad — it's too bad — I'd rather be Mary Ann — 
 sh^s got friends, and evenings out — and — and parties 
 sometimes ; and I see nobody, and go nowhere. What 
 did you have me home for at all ? '
 
 YOUTH 287 
 
 And she sat down and dried her eyes piteously. She 
 was in real distress, but she liked a scene, and Purcell 
 knew her peculiarities. He surveyed her with a sort of 
 sombre indulgence. 
 
 ' You're a vain child of this world, Lucy. If I 
 didn't keep a look-out on you, you'd soon go rejoicing 
 down the broad way. What do you mean about 
 amusements? There's the missionary tea to-morrow 
 night, and the magic-lantern at the schools ou 
 Saturday.' 
 
 Lucy gave a little hysterical laugh. 
 
 ' Well,' said Purcell loudly, ' there'll be plenty of 
 young people there. What have you got to say against 
 them ? ' 
 
 ' A set of frig] its and gmoJis,' said Lucy, sitting bolt 
 upright in a state of flat mutiny, and crushing her 
 handkerchief on her knee between a pair of trembling 
 hands. ' The way they do their hair, and the way they 
 tie their ties, and the way they put a chair for you — it's 
 enough to make one faint. At the Christmas treat there 
 was one young man asked me to trim his shirt-cufFs for 
 him with scissors he took out of bis pocket. I told him 
 I wasn't his nurse, and people who weren't dressed 
 ought to stay at home. You should have seen how he 
 and his sister glared at me afterwards. I don't care ! 
 None of the chapel people like me — I know they don't, 
 and I don't want them to, and I wouldn't marry one of 
 them .'
 
 288 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 The gesture of Lucy's curly head was superb. 
 
 ' It seems to me,' said Purcell sarcastically, ' that 
 what you mostly learnt at Blackburn was envy, malice, 
 and all uncharitableness. As to marrying, child, the 
 less you think of it for the present the better, till you 
 get more sense.' 
 
 But the eyes whfch studied her were not unkindly. 
 Purcell liked this slim red and white creature who 
 belonged to him, whose education had cost him hard 
 money which it gave him pleasure to reckon up, and 
 who promised now to provide him with a fresh field 
 for the management and the coarse moral experiment 
 which he loved. She would be restive at first, but he 
 would soon break her in. The idea that under her 
 folly and childishness she might possibly inherit some 
 of his own tenacity never occurred to him. 
 
 ' I can't imagine,' said Lucy inconsequently, with 
 eyes once more swimming, ' why you can't let me do 
 what Dora does ! She's miicli better than I am. She's 
 a saint, she is. She's always going to church ; she's 
 always doing things for poor people ; she never thinks 
 
 about herself, or whether she's pretty, or Why 
 
 shouldn't I dance if she does ? ' 
 
 Purcell laughed. 
 
 ' Aye ! ' he said grimly, ' that's the Papistical way 
 all over. So many services, so much fasting, so much 
 money, so much knocking under to your priest, so much 
 "church work" — and who cares a brass farthing what 
 you do with the rest of your time ? Do as I tell you,
 
 YOUTH 289 
 
 and dance away ! But I tell you, Cliristianity wants a 
 new heart ! ' 
 
 And the bookseller looked at his daughter with a 
 frowning severity. Conversation of this kind was his 
 recreation, his accomplishment, so to speak. He had 
 been conducting a difficult negotiation all day of the 
 diamond-cut-diamond order, and was tired out and 
 disgusted by the amount of knowledge of books which 
 even a gentleman may possess. But here was compen- 
 sation. A warm hearthrug, an unwilling listener, and 
 this sense of an incomparable soundness of view, — he 
 wanted nothing more to revive him, unless, indeed, it 
 were a larger audience. 
 
 As for Lucy, as she looked up at her father, even 
 her childish intelligence rose to a sense of absurdity. 
 As if Dora hadn't a new heart ; as if Dora thought it 
 was enough to go to church and give sixpences in the 
 offertory ! 
 
 But her father overawed her. She had been left 
 motherless at ten years old, and brought up since away 
 from home, except for holidays. At the bottom of her, 
 she was quite conscious that she knew nothing at all 
 about this big contemptuous person, who ordered her 
 about and preached to her, and never let himself be 
 kissed and played with and coaxed as other girls' fathers 
 did. 
 
 So she went on with her washing up in a crushed 
 silence, very sorry for herself in a vague passionate 
 way, the corners of her mouth di'ooping. l*urcell too 
 VOL. I. u
 
 290 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 fell into a reverie, the lower jaw pushed forward, one 
 hand playing with the watch-chain which adorned his 
 black suit. 
 
 ' Did you give Grieve that message ? ' he asked at 
 last. 
 
 Lucy, still sulky, nodded in reply. 
 
 ' What time did he come in from dinner ? ' 
 
 ' On the stroke of the half-hour,' said Lucy quickly. 
 * I think he keeps time better than anybody you ever 
 had, father.' 
 
 ' Insolent young whelp ! ' said Purcell in a slow, 
 deliberate voice. ' He was at that place again y ester- 
 day.' 
 
 ' Yes, I know he was,' said Lucy, with evident agita- 
 tion. ' I told him he ought to have been ashamed.' 
 
 ' Oh, you talked to him, did you ? What business 
 had you to do that, I wonder ? Well, what did he say ? ' 
 
 ' He said — well, I don't know what he said. He 
 don't seem to think it matters to anybody where he 
 goes on Sunday ! ' 
 
 ' Oh, indeed — don't he ? I'll show him some cause 
 to doubt the truth of that proposition,' said Purcell 
 ponderously ; ' or I'll know the reason why.' 
 
 Lucy looked unhappy, and said nothing for a 
 minute or two. Then she began insistently, ' Well, 
 does it matter to you ? ' 
 
 This deplorable question — viewed from the stand- 
 point of a Baptist elder — passed unnoticed, for with 
 the last words the shop-bell rang, and Purcell went off,
 
 YOUTH 291 
 
 transformed on the instant into the sharp, attentive 
 tradesman. 
 
 Lucy sat wiping her cups mechanically for a little 
 while. Then, when they were all done, and Mary Ann 
 had been loftily commanded to put them away, she 
 slipped upstairs to her own room, a little attic at the 
 top of the house. Here she went to a deal press, which 
 had been her mother's, opened it, and took out a dress 
 which hung in a compartment by itself, enveloped in 
 a holland wrapper, lest Manchester smuts should harm 
 it. She undid the wrapper, and laid it on the bed. 
 It was an embroidered white muslin, adorned with lace 
 and full knots of narrow pink ribbon. 
 
 ' What a trouble I had to get the ribbon just that 
 width,' she thought to herself ruefully, ' and everybody 
 said it was so uncommon. I might as well give it 
 Dora. I don't believe I shall ever wear it. I don't 
 know what '11 become of me. I don't get any 
 chances.' 
 
 And shaking her head mournfully from side to side, 
 she sat on beside the dress, in the light of her solitary 
 candle, her hands clasped round her knee, the picture 
 of girlish despair, so far as anything so daintily gowned, 
 and shoed, and curled, could achieve it. She was 
 thinking drearily of some people who were coming to 
 supper, one of her father's brother elders at the chapel, 
 Mr. Baruch Barton, and his daughter. Mr. Barton had 
 a speciality for the prophet Zephaniah, and had been 
 several times shocked because Lucy could not help him 
 
 u 2
 
 292 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 out with his quotations from that source. His daughter, 
 a little pinched asthmatic creature, in a dress whereof 
 every gore and seam was an affront to the art of dress- 
 making, was certainly thirty, probably more. And 
 between thirty and the Psalmist's limit of existence, 
 there is the very smallest appreciable difference, in the 
 opinion of seventeen. What coiilcl she have to say to 
 Emmy Barton ? Lucy asked herself. She began yawn- 
 ing from sheer dulness, as she thought of her. If it 
 were only time to go to bed ! 
 
 Suddenly she heard a sound of raised voices in the 
 upper shop on the floor below. What could it be? 
 She started up. ' Mr. Grieve and father quarrelling ! ' 
 She knew it must come to that ! 
 
 She crept down the stairs with every precaution 
 possible till she came to the door behind which the 
 loud talk which had startled her was going on. Here she 
 listened with all her ears, but at first to very little 
 purpose. David was speaking, but so rapidly, and 
 apparently so near to the other end of the room, that 
 she could hear nothing. Then her father broke in, and 
 by dint of straining very hard, she caught most of what 
 he said before the whole colloquy came abruptly to an 
 end. She heard Purcell's heavy tread descending the 
 little iron spiral staircase leading from the lower shop 
 to the upper. She heard David moving about, as 
 though he were gathering up books and papers, and 
 then, with a loud childish sob which burst from her 
 unawares, she ran upstairs again to her own room.
 
 YOUTH 293 
 
 ' ' Oh, lie's going, he's going ! ' she cried under her 
 breath, as she stood before the glass winking to keep 
 the tears back, and biting her handkerchief hard 
 between her little white teeth. ' Oh, what shall I do ? 
 what shall I do ? It'll be always the same ; just when 
 anyone migld like me, it all stops. And he won't care 
 one little, little bit. Hell never think of me again. 
 Oh, I do think somebody might care about me — might 
 be sorry for me ! ' 
 
 And she locked her hands tight before her, and 
 stared at the glass, while the tears forced their way. 
 But all the time she was noticing how prettily she 
 stood, how slim she was. And though she smarted, 
 she would not for the world have been without her 
 smart, her excitement, her foolish secret, which, for 
 sheer lack of something to do and think about, had 
 suddenly grown to such magnitude in her eyes. It 
 was hard to cherish a hopeless passion for a handsome 
 youth, without a halfpenny, who despised you, but it 
 was infinitely better than to have nothing in your mind 
 but Emmy Barton and the prophet Zephaniah. Nay, 
 as she washed her hands and smoothed her dress and 
 hair with trembling fingers, she became quite friendly 
 with her pain — in a sense, even proud of it, and jealous 
 for it. It was a sign of mature life — of something more 
 than mere school-girlishness. Like the lover in the 
 Elizabethan sonnet, ' She had been vexed, if vexed she 
 had not been ! '
 
 294 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 CHAPTER Til 
 
 ' Come in, David,' said Mr. Ancrum, opening the door 
 of liis little sitting-room in Mortimer Street. ' You're 
 rather late, but I don't wonder. Such a wind ! I could 
 hardly stand against it myself. But, then, I'm an atomy. 
 What, no top-coat in such weather ! What do you 
 mean by that, sir ? You're wet through. There, dry 
 yourself.' 
 
 David, with a grin at Mr. Ancrum's unnecessary 
 concern for him, deposited himself in the carpet chair 
 which formed the minister's only lounge, and held out 
 his legs and arms to the blaze. He was wet indeed, 
 and bespattered with the blackest mud in the three 
 kingdoms. But the battle with wind and rain had so 
 brought into play all the physical force of him, had so 
 brightened eye and cheek, and tossed the black hair 
 into such a fine confusion, that, as he sat there bending 
 over the glow of the fire, the crippled man opposite, 
 sickly with long confinement and over-thinking, could 
 not take his eyes from him. The storm with all its 
 freshness, youth with all its reckless joy in itself, 
 seemed to have come in with the lad and transformed 
 the little dingy room.
 
 YOUTH 295 
 
 ' What do you wear trash like that for in a tem- 
 perature like this ? ' said the minister, touching his 
 guest's thin and much-worn coat. ' Don't you know, 
 David, that your health is money ? Suppose you get 
 lung trouble, who's to look after you ? ' 
 
 ' It don't do me no harm, sir. I can't get into my 
 last year's coat, and I couldn't afford a new one this 
 winter.' 
 
 'What wages do you earn?' asked Ancrum. His 
 manner was a curious mixture of melancholy gentleness 
 and of that terse sharpness in practical things which 
 the south country resents and the north country takes 
 for gi'anted. 
 
 '- Eighteen shillings a week, since last November, 
 sir.' 
 
 ' That ought to be enough for a top-coat, you rascal, 
 with only yourself to feed,' said Mr. Ancrum, stretching 
 himself in his hard armchair, so as to let his lame leg 
 with its heavy boot rest comfortably on the fender. 
 David had noticed at first sight of him that his old 
 playfellow had grown to look much older than in the 
 Clough End days. His hair was nearly white, and 
 lay in a large smooth wave across the broad brow. 
 And in that brow there were deep fuiTows, and 
 many a new and premature line in the hollow cheeks. 
 Something withering and blighting seemed to have 
 passed over the whole man since those Sunday school 
 lessons in the Christian Brethren's upper room, which 
 David still remembered so well. But the eyes with
 
 296 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 their irresistible intensity and force were the same. 
 In them the minister's youth — he was not yet thirty- 
 five — still spoke, as from a last stronghold in a failing 
 realm. They had a strange look too, the look as of a 
 secret life, not for the passer-by. 
 
 David smiled at Ancrum's last remark, and for a 
 moment or two looked into the fire without speaking. 
 
 ' Well, if I'd bought clothes or anything else this 
 winter, I should be in a precious worse hole than I am,' 
 he said reflectively. 
 
 ' Hole ? What's wrong, Davy ? ' 
 
 ' My master gave me the sack Monday.' 
 
 ' Humph ! ' said Ancrum, surveying him. ' Well, 
 you don't look much cast down about it, I must say.' 
 
 ' Well, you see, I'd laid my plans,' said the young 
 man, an irrepressible gaiety and audacity in every 
 feature. ' It isn't as though I were taken by surprise.' 
 
 ' Plans for a new place, I suppose ? ' 
 
 ^ No ; I have done with that. I am going to set 
 up for myself. I know the trade, and I've got some 
 money.' 
 
 ^ How old are you, Davy ? ' 
 
 ^ Just upon twenty,' said the lad, quietly. 
 
 The minister pursed up his lips and whistled a 
 little. 
 
 ' Well, that's bold,' he said. ' Somehow I like it, 
 though by all the laws of prudence I ought to jump 
 down your throat for announcing such a thing. But 
 how did you get your money ? and what have you been
 
 YOUTH 297 
 
 doing these four years? Come, I'm an old friend, — 
 though I dare say you don't think me much of a fellow 
 Out with it ! Pay me anyway for all those ships I 
 made you long ago.' 
 
 And he held out his blanched hand, little more 
 now than skin and bone. David put his own into it 
 awkwardly enough. At this period of his life he was 
 not demonstrative. 
 
 The story he had to tell was, to Ancrum's think- 
 ing, a remarkable one. He had come into Manchester 
 on an October evening with five shillings and three- 
 pence in his pocket. From a point on the south-western 
 border of the city he took a 'bus for Deansgate and 
 Victoria Street. As he was sitting on the top feeding 
 his eyes on the lights and the crowd of the streets, but 
 wholly ignorant where to go and what first step to take, 
 he fell into talk with a decent working-man and his wife 
 sitting beside him. The result of the talk was that 
 they offered him shelter at fourpence a night. He 
 dismounted with them at Blackfriars Bridge, and they 
 made their way across the river to a street in Salford, 
 where he lodged with them for a week. During that 
 week he lived on oatmeal and an occasional baked potato, 
 paying his hostess eighteenpence additional for the use 
 of her fire, and the right to sit in her kitchen when 
 he was not tramping about in search of work. By the 
 end of the week he had found a post as errand-boy at 
 a large cheap bookseller's and stationer's in Deansgate, 
 at eight shillings a week, his good looks, manner, and
 
 298 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 education evidently helping him largely, as Mr. Ancrum 
 could perceive through the boy's very matter-of-fact 
 account of himself. He then made an agreement for 
 bed, use of fire, and kitchen, with his new friends at 
 four shillings a week, and by the end of six months he 
 was receiving a wage of fourteen shillings as salesman 
 and had saved close on five pounds. 
 
 ' Well, now, come, how did you manage that, Davy ? ' 
 said Mr. Ancrum, interrupting. ' Don't run on in that 
 fashion. Details are the only interesting things in life, 
 and details I'll have. You must have found it a 
 precious tight fit to save that five pounds.' 
 
 Whereupon David, his eye kindling, ran out Ben- 
 jamin Franklin and the ' Vegetarian News,' his con- 
 stant friends from the first day of his acquaintance with 
 the famous autobiography till now, in spite of such 
 occasional lapses into carnal feeding as he had con- 
 fessed to Daddy. In a few minutes Ancrum found 
 himself buried in ' details ' as to ' flesh-forming ' and 
 ' bone-forming ' foods, as to nitrogen and albumen, as 
 to the saving qualities of fruit, and Heaven knows what 
 besides. Long before the enthusiast had spent his 
 breath or his details, the minister cried ' Enough ! ' 
 
 ' Young materialist,' he said growling, ' what do you 
 mean at your age by thinking so much about your 
 body?' 
 
 ' It wasn't my body, sir,' said David, simply, ' it 
 was just business. If I had got ill, I couldn't have 
 worked ; if I had lived like other chaps, I couldn't have
 
 YOUTH 299 
 
 saved. So I had to know sometliing about it, and it 
 wasn't bad fun. After a bit I got the people I lodged 
 with to eat a lot of the things I eat — and that was 
 cheaper for me of course. The odd thing about vege- 
 tarianism is that you come not to care a rap what 
 you eat. Your taste goes somehow. So long as 
 you're nourished and can do your work, that's all you 
 want.' 
 
 The minister sat studying his visitor a minute or 
 two in silence, though the eyes under the care-worn brow 
 were bright and restless. Any defiance of the miserable 
 body was in itself delightful to a man who had all but 
 slain himself many times over in the soul's service. He, 
 too, had been living on a crust for months, denying 
 himself first this, then that ingredient of what should 
 have been an invalid's diet. But it had been for cause — 
 for the poor— for self-mortification. There was some- 
 thing just a little jarring to the ascetic in this contact 
 with a self-denial of the purely rationalistic type, so 
 easy — so cheerful — put forward without the smallest 
 suspicion of merit, as a mere business measure. 
 
 David resumed his story. By the end of another 
 six months it appeared that he had grown tired of his 
 original shop, with its vast masses of school stationery 
 and cheap new books. As might have been expected 
 from his childish antecedents, he had been soon laid 
 hold of by the old bookstalls, had read at them on his 
 way from work, had spent on them all that he could 
 persuade himself to spare from his hoard, and in a 3'ear
 
 300 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 from the time lie entered Manchester, thanks to wits, 
 reading, and chance friendships, was already a budding 
 bibliophile. Slates and primers became suddenly odious 
 to a person aware of the existence of Aldines and Elzevirs, 
 and bitten with the passion, then just let loose on the 
 book-buying world, for first editions of the famous books 
 of the century. Whenever that sum in the savings 
 bank should have reached a certain height, he would 
 become a second-hand bookseller with a stall. Till 
 then he must save more and learn his trade. So at the 
 end of his first year he left his employers, and by the 
 help of excellent recommendations from them got the 
 post of assistant in Purcell's shop in Half Street, 
 at a rise of two shillings, afterwards converted into four 
 shillings a week. 
 
 ' And I've been there three years — very near,' said 
 David, straightening himself with a little nervous 
 gesture peculiar to him. ' If you'd been anywhere 
 about, sir, you'd have wondered how I could have stayed 
 so long. But I wanted to learn the trade and I've 
 learnt it — no thanks to old Purcell.' 
 
 ' What was wrong with him ? ' 
 
 ' Mostly brains ! ' said the lad, with a scornful but 
 not unattractive conceit. ^ He was a hard master to 
 live with — that don't matter. But he is a fool ! I don't 
 mean to say he don't know a lot about some things — 
 but he thinks he knows everything — and he don't. 
 And he'll not let anyone tell him — not he ! Once, if 
 you'll believe it, he got the Aldine Virgil of 1501, for
 
 YOUTH 301 
 
 twenty-five shillings — came from a gentleman out 
 Eccles way — a fellow selling his father's library and 
 didn't know bad from good, — real fine tall copy, — 
 binding poor, — but a stunner take it altogether — worth 
 twenty pounds to Quaritch or Ellis, any day. Well, all 
 I could do, he let a man have it for five shillings profit 
 next day, j ust to spite me, I believe, because I told him 
 it was a good thing. Then he got sick about that, I 
 believe, though he never let out, and the next time he 
 found anything that looked good, — giminy ! — but he put 
 it on. Now you know, sir ' — Mr. Ancrum smiled at the 
 confidential eagerness of the expert — ' you know, sir, 
 it's not many of those Venice or Florence Dantes that 
 are worth anything. If you get the first edition of 
 Landino's ' Commentary,' or the other man's, Imola's, 
 isn't it — ' 
 
 The minister lifted his eyebrows — the Italian came 
 out pat, and, so far as he knew, right — 
 
 ' Well, of course, thei/re worth money — always fetch 
 their price. But the later editions are no good at all 
 — nobody but a gentleman-collector, very green, you 
 know, sir ' — the twinkle in the boy's eye showed how 
 much his subject was setting him at his ease — ' would 
 be bothered with them. Well, if lie didn't get hold or 
 an edition of 1540 or so — worth about eight shillings, 
 and dear at that — and send it up to one of the London 
 men as a good thing. He makes me pack it and 
 send it and register it — you might have thought it was 
 the Mazarin Bible, bar size. And then, of course, next
 
 302 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 day, down comes the book again flying, double quick. 
 I kept out of his way, post-time ! But I'd have given 
 something to see the letter he got.' 
 
 And David, rising, put his hands in his pockets, and 
 stood before the fire chuckling with irrepressible amuse- 
 ment. 
 
 ' Well, then you know there's the first editions of 
 Rousseau — not a bit rare, as rare goes — lucky if you 
 get thirty shillings for the " Contrat Social," or the 
 *' Nouvelle Heloise," even good copies — ' 
 
 Again the host's eyebrows lifted. The French 
 names ran remarkably ; there was not the least bog- 
 gling over them. But he said nothing, and David 
 rattled on, describing, with a gusto which never failed, 
 one of Purcell's book-selling enormities after another. It 
 was evident that he despised his master with a passionate 
 contempt. It was evident also that Purcell had shown 
 a mean and unreasoning jealousy of his assistant. The 
 English tradesman inherits a domineering tradition 
 towards his subordinates, and in Purcell's case, as we 
 know, the instincts of an egotistical piety had rein- 
 forced those of the employer. Yet Mr. Ancrum felt 
 some sympathy with Purcell. 
 
 ^ Well, Davy,' he said at last, ' so you were too 'cute 
 for your man, that's plain. But I don't suppose he put 
 it on that ground when he gave you the sack ? ' 
 
 And he looked up, with a little dry smile. 
 
 ' No ! ' cried David, abruptly. ' No ! not he. If 
 you go and ask hhn he'll tell you he sent me off
 
 YOUTH 303 
 
 because I would go to the Secularist meetings at the 
 Hall of Science, and air myself as an atheist ; that's 
 his way of putting it. And it was doing him harm 
 with his religious customers ! As if I was going to let 
 him dictate where I went on Sundays ! ' 
 
 ' Of course not/ said Ancrum, with a twist of his 
 oddly shaped mouth. ' Even the very youngest of us 
 might sometimes be the better for advice ; but, hang it, 
 let's be free — free to " make fools of ourselves," as a 
 wise man hath it. Well, Davy, no offence,' for his 
 guest had flushed suddenly. ' So you go to the Hall 
 of Science ? Did you hear Holyoake and Brad- 
 laugh there the other night ? You like that kind of 
 thing ? ' 
 
 ' I like to hear it,' said the lad, stoutly, meeting his 
 old teacher's look, half nervously, half defiantly. ' It's a 
 great deal more lively than what you hear at most 
 churches, sir. And why shouldn't one hear every- 
 thing ? ' 
 
 This was not precisely the tone which the same 
 culprit had adopted towards Dora Lomax. The Vol- 
 tairean suddenly felt himself to be making excuses — 
 shabby excuses — in the presence of somebody connected, 
 however distantly, with Vinfdme. He drew himself up 
 with an angry shake of his whole powerful frame. 
 
 ' Oh, why not ? ' said Ancrum, with a shrug, ' if 
 life's long enough ' — and he absently lifted and let 
 fall a book which lay on the table beside him ; it was 
 Newman's ' Dream of Gierontius ' — ' if life's lonu'
 
 304 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 enough, and — liappy enough ! Well, so you've been 
 learning French, I can hear. Teaching yourself? ' 
 
 ' No ; there's an old Frenchman, old Barbier — do 
 you know him, sir ? He gives lessons at a shilling an 
 hour. Very few people go to him now ; they want 
 younger men. And there's lots of them about. But 
 old Barbier knows more about books than any of them, 
 I'll be bound.' 
 
 ' Has he introduced you to French novels ? 1 never 
 read any ; but they're bad, of course — must be. In all 
 those things I'm a Britisher and believe what the 
 Britishers say.' 
 
 ' We're just at the end of " Manon Lescaut," ' said 
 David, doggedly. 'And partly with him, partly by 
 myself, I've read a bit of Rousseau — and a good lot of 
 Diderot, — and Voltaire.' 
 
 David threw an emphasis into the last name, which 
 was meant to atone to himself for the cowardice of a 
 few minutes before. The old boyish feeling towards 
 Mr. Ancrum, which had revived in him when he 
 entered the room, had gradually disappeared again. 
 He bore the minister no real grudge for having for- 
 gotten him, but he wished it to be clearly understood 
 that the last fragments of the Christian Brethren yoke 
 had dropped from his neck. 
 
 ' Ah ! don't know anything about them,' said 
 Ancrum, slowly ; ' but then, as you know, I'm a very 
 ignorant person. Well, now, was it Voltaire took you 
 to the secularists, or the secularists to Voltaii'e ? '
 
 YOUTH 305 
 
 David laughed, but did not give a reply im- 
 mediately. 
 
 ' Well, never mind,' said tlie minister. ' All Chris- 
 tians are fools, of course — that's understood. — Is that 
 all you have been learning these four years ? ' 
 
 ' I work at Latin every morning,' said David, very 
 red, and on his dignity. ' I've begun Greek, and I go 
 to the science classes, mathematics and chemistry, at 
 the Mechanics' Institute.' 
 
 Mr. Ancrum's face softened. 
 
 ^ Why, I'll be bound you have to go to work pretty 
 early, Davy ? ' 
 
 ' Seven o'clock, sir, I take the shutters down. But 
 I get an hour and a half first, and three hours in the 
 evening. This winter I've got through the "^Eneid," 
 and Horace's " Epistles " and " Ars Poetica." Do you 
 remember, sir ? ' — and the lad's voice grew shai'p once 
 more, tightening as it were under the pressure of eager- 
 ness and ambition from beneath — ' do you remember 
 that Scaliger read the '' Iliad " in twenty days, and was 
 a finished Greek scholar in two years ? Why can't one 
 do that now ? ' 
 
 * Why shouldn't you ? ' said Mr. Ancrum, looking 
 up at him. ' Who helps you in your Greek ? ' 
 
 ' No one ; I get translations.' 
 
 'Well, now, look here, Davy. I'm an ignorant 
 person, as I told you, but I learnt some Latin and 
 Greek at Manchester New College. Come to me in the 
 VOL. I. X
 
 3o6 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 evenings, and I'll help you with your Greek, unless 
 you've got beyond me. Where are you ? ' 
 
 The budding Scaliger reported himself. He had 
 read the 'Anabasis,' some Herodotus, three plays of 
 Euri^oides, and was now making some desperate efforts 
 on ^schylus and Sophocles. Any Plato? David 
 made a face. He had read two or three dialogues 
 in English ; didn't want to go on, didn't care about 
 him. Ah ! Ancrum supposed not. 
 
 'Twelve hours' shop,' said the minister reflecting, 
 'more or less, — two hours' work before shop, — three 
 hours or so after shop ; that's what you may call driv- 
 ing it hard. You couldn't do it, Kichard Ancrum,' and 
 he shook his head with a whimsical melancholy. ' But 
 you were always a poor starveling. Youth that is 
 youth 's tough. Don't tell me, sir,' and he looked up 
 sharply, ' that you don't amuse yourself. I wouldn't 
 believe it. There never was a man built like you yet 
 that didn't amuse himself 
 
 David smiled, but said nothing. 
 
 'Billiards?' 
 
 ' No, sir.' 
 
 ' Betting ? ' 
 
 ' No, sir. They cost money.' 
 
 ' Niggardly dog ! Drink ? — no, I'll answer that for 
 myself.' 
 
 The minister dropped his catechism, and sat nursing 
 his lame leg and thinking. Suddenly he broke out with, 
 ' How many young women are you in love with, David ? '
 
 YOUTH 307 
 
 David showed his white teeth. 
 
 ' I only know two, sir. One's my master's daughter 
 — she's rather a pretty girl, I think ' 
 
 ' That'll do. You're not in love with her. Who's 
 the other ? ' 
 
 ' The other 's Mr. Lomax's daughter, — Lomaxof the 
 Parlour, that queer restaurant, sir, in Market Place. 
 She — well, I don't know how to describe her. She's not 
 good-looking — at least, I don't think so,' he added 
 dubiously. ' She's very High Church, and fasts all 
 Lent. I think she does Church embroidery.' 
 
 ^ And doesn't think any the better of you for attend- 
 ing the Hall of Science ? Sensible girl ! Still, when 
 people mean to fall in love, they don't think twice of 
 that sort of thing. I make a note of Lomax's daughter. 
 Ah ! enter supper. David, if you let any 'ism stand 
 between you and that veal pie, I despair of your future.' 
 
 David, however, in the course of the meal, showed 
 himself as superior to narrowness of view in the matter 
 of food-stuffs as in other matters. The meal went 
 merrily. Mr. Ancrum dropped his half-sarcastic tone, 
 and food, warmth, and talk loosened the lad's fibres, and 
 made him more and more human, handsome, and 
 attractive. Soon his old friend knew all that he wanted 
 to know, — the sum David had saved — thirty pounds in 
 the savings-bank — the sort of stock he meant to set up, 
 the shop he had taken — with a stall, of course — no 
 beginner need hope to prosper without a stall. Cus- 
 
 X 2
 
 3o8 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 tomers must be delicately angled for at a safe distance 
 — show yourself too much, and, like trout, they flashed 
 away. See everything, force nothing. Let a book be 
 turned over for nineteen days, the chances were that on 
 the twentieth you would turn over the price. As to 
 expecting the class of cheap customers to commit them- 
 selves by walking into a shop, it was simple madness. 
 Of course, when you were ' established,' that was another 
 matter. 
 
 By the help of a certain wealthy Unitarian, one Mr. 
 Doyle, with whom he had made friends in Purcell's 
 shop, and whom he had boldly asked for the use of his 
 name as a reference, the lad had taken — so it appeared — 
 a small house in Potter Street, a narrow but frequented 
 street in the neighbourhood of Deansgate and all the 
 great banks and insurance offices in King Street. 
 His shop took up the ground floor. The two floors 
 above were let, and the tenants would remain. But 
 into the attics and the parlour kitchen behind the 
 shop, he meant, ultimately, when he could afibrd it, to 
 put himself and his sister. He could only get the 
 house on a yearly tenancy, as it and the others near it 
 were old, and would probably be rebuilt before long. 
 But meanwhile the rent was all the lower because of 
 the insecurity of teniu'e. 
 
 At the mention of the boy's sister, Ancrum looked 
 up with a start. 
 
 ' Ah, to be sure ! What became of that poor child 
 after you left ? The Clough End friends who wrote to
 
 YOUTH 309 
 
 me of your disappearance had more pity for her, Davy, 
 than they had for you.' 
 
 A sudden repulsion and reserve darkened the 
 black eyes opposite. 
 
 * There was no helping it,' he said with hasty de- 
 fiance. There was a moment's silence. Then a wish 
 to explain himself rose in David. 
 
 ' I couldn't have stayed, sir,' he said, with a curious 
 half-reproachful accent. ' I told you about how it 
 was before you left. And there were other things. 
 I should have cut my own throat or some one else's 
 if it had gone on. But I haven't forgotten Louie. 
 You remember Tom Mullins at the foundry. He's 
 written me every month. I paid him for it. I know 
 all about Louie, and they don't know anything about 
 me. They think I'm in America.' 
 
 His eyes lit again with the joy of contrivance. 
 
 ' Is that kind, Davy ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, sir ' and for the first time the minister 
 
 heard in the boy's voice the tone of a man's judgment. 
 ' I couldn't have Louie on me just yet. I was going to 
 ask you, sir, not to tell the people at Clough End you've 
 seen me. It would make it very hard. You know what 
 Louie is — and she's all right. She's learnt a trade.' 
 
 'What trade?' 
 
 ' Silk- weaving — from Margaret Dawson.' 
 
 ' Poor soul — poor saint ! Thered be more 
 things than her trade to be learnt from Margaret 
 Dawson if anyone had a mind to learn them. A\'hat 
 of 'Lias?'
 
 3IO THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 ' Oh, he died, sir, a week after I left.' The lad's 
 voice dropped. Then he added slowly, looking away, 
 'Tom said he was very quiet — he didn't suffer much — 
 not at the end.' 
 
 ' Aye, the clouds lift at sunset,' said Mr. Ancrum 
 in an altered tone ; ' the air clears before the night ! ' 
 
 His head fell forward on his breast, and he sat 
 drumming on the table. They had finished supper, 
 the little, bustling landlady had cleared away, and Davy 
 was thinking of going. Suddenly the minister sprang 
 up and stood before the fire, looking down at his guest.. 
 
 ' Davy, do you want to know why I didn't write 
 to you ? I was ill first — very ill ; then — / v:a8 in 
 Jiell ! ' 
 
 David started. Into the thin, crooked face, with 
 the seeking eyes, there had flashed an expression — 
 sinister, indescribable, a sort of dumb rage. It changed 
 the man altogether. 
 
 ' I was in hell ! ' he repeated slowly. ' I know no 
 more about it. Other people may tell yoa, perhaps, 
 if you come across them — I can't. There were days 
 at Clough End — always a certain number in the year — 
 when this earth slipped away from me, and the fiends 
 came about me, but this was mouths. They say I was 
 overdone in the cotton famine years ago just before I 
 came to Clough End. I got pneumonia after I left you 
 that May — it doesn't matter. When I knew there was 
 a sun again, I wrote to ask about you. You had left 
 Kinder and gone — no one knew where.' 
 
 David sat nervously silent, not knowing what to
 
 YOUTH 311 
 
 say, his mind gradually tilling with the sense of some- 
 thing tragic, irreparable. Mr. Ancrum, too, stood 
 straight before him, as though turned to stone. 
 
 At last David got up and approached him. Had 
 Ancrum been looking he must have been touched by 
 the change in the lad's expression. The hard self-re- 
 liant force of the face had melted into feeling. 
 
 ' Are you better now, sir ? I knew you must have 
 been ill,' he stammered. 
 
 Ancrum started as though just wakened. 
 
 ' 111 ? Yes, I was pretty bad,' he said briskly, and 
 in his most ordinary tone, though with a long breath. 
 ' But I'm as fit as anything now. Good night, Davy, 
 good night. Come a walk with me some day ? Sunday 
 afternoon ? Done. Here, write me your new address.' 
 
 The tall form and curly black head disappeared, the 
 little lodging-house room, with its round rosewood 
 table, its horsehair sofa, its chitfonnier, and its prints 
 of ' Sport at Balmoral ' and ' The Mother's Kiss,' had 
 resumed the dingy formality of every day. 
 
 The minister sank into his seat and held his hands 
 out over the blaze. He was in pain. All life was to 
 him more or less a struggle with physical ill. But it 
 was not so primarily that he conceived it. The physical 
 ill was nothing except as representing a philosophical 
 necessity. 
 
 That lad, with all his raw certainties — of himself, 
 his knowledge, his Voltaire — the poor minister felt once 
 or twice a piteous envy of him, as he sat on through the
 
 312 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 night hours. Life was ill-apportioned. The poor, the 
 lonely, the feeble — it is they who want certainty, want 
 hope most. And because they are lonely and feeble, 
 because their brain tissues are diseased, and their life 
 from no fault of their own unnatural, nature who has 
 made them dooms them to despair and doubt. Is there 
 any ' soul,' any ' personality ' for the man who is 
 afflicted and weakened with intermittent melancholia ? 
 Where is his identity, where his responsibility ? And if 
 there is none for him, how does the accident of health 
 bestow them on his neighbour ? 
 
 Questions of this sort had beset Richard Ancrum 
 for years. On the little book-table to his right lay 
 papers of Huxley's, of Clifford's, and several worn 
 volumes of mental pathology. The brooding intellect 
 was for ever raising the same problem, the same spectre 
 world of universal doubt, in which God, conscience, 
 faith, were words without a meaning. 
 
 But side by side with the restlessness of the intel- 
 lect there had always gone the imperious and prevail- 
 ing claim of temperament. Beside Huxley and Clifford, 
 lay Newman's ' Sermons ' and ' Apologia,' and a little 
 High Church manual of self-examination. And on the 
 wall above the book-table hung a memorandum-slate on 
 which were a number of addresses and dates — the 
 addresses of some forty boys whom the minister taught 
 on Sunday in one of the Unitarian Sunday schools of 
 Manchester, and visited in the week. The care and 
 training of street arabs had been his passion when he 
 was still a student at Manchester New College. Then
 
 YOUTH 313 
 
 had come his moment of utterance — a thirst for preach- 
 ing, for religious influence ; though he could not bring 
 himself to accept any particular shibboleth or take any 
 kind of orders. He found something congenial for a 
 time to a deep though struggling faith in the leader- 
 ship of the Christian Brethren. Now, however, some- 
 thing had broken in him ; he could preach no more. 
 But he could go back to his old school ; he could teach 
 his boys on Sundays and week days ; he could take 
 them out country walks in spite of his lame limb ; he 
 coulddeny himself even the commonest necessaries of life 
 for their sake ; he could watch over each of them with 
 a fervour, a moral intensity which wore him out. In 
 this, in some insignificant journalism for a religious 
 paper, and in thinking, he spent his life. 
 
 There had been a dark page in his history. He had 
 hardly left Manchester New College when he married 
 suddenly a girl of some beauty, but with an undeveloped 
 sensuous temperament. They were to live on a crust and 
 give themselves to the service of man. His o^^^l dream 
 was still fresh when she deserted him in the company 
 of one of his oldest friends. He followed them, found 
 them both in black depths of remorse, and took her 
 back. But the strain of living together proved too 
 much. She implored him to let her go and earn her 
 living apart. She had been a teacher and she proposed 
 to return to her profession. He saw her established iu 
 Glasgow in the house of some good people who knew 
 her history, and who got her a post in a small school. 
 Thenhereturnt'd to Manchester and thrt-w himself with
 
 314 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 reckless ardour into tlie work of feeding the hungry, and 
 nursing the dying, in the cotton famine. He emerged 
 a broken man, physically and morally, liable thence- 
 forward to recurrent crises of melancholia; but they 
 were not frequent or severe enough to prevent his work- 
 ing. He was at the time entirely preoccupied with 
 certain religious questions, and thankfully accepted the 
 call to the little congregation at Clough End. 
 
 Since then he had visited his wife twice every year. 
 He was extremely poor. His family, who had destined 
 him for the Presbyterian ministry, were estranged from 
 him ; hardly anyone in Manchester knew him intimately ; 
 only in one house, far away in the Scotch lowlands, 
 were there two people, who deeply loved and thoroughly 
 understood him, There he went when his dark hours 
 came upon him ; and thence, after the terrible illness 
 which overtook him on his leaving Clough End, he 
 emerged again, shattered but indomitable, to take up 
 the battle of life as he understood it. 
 
 He was not an able nor a literary man. His mind 
 was a strange medley, and his mental sight far from 
 clear. Of late the study of Newman had been a reve- 
 lation to him. But he did not cease for that to read 
 the books of scientific psychology which tortured him — 
 the books which seemed to make of mind a function of 
 matter, and man the slave of an immoral nature. The 
 only persistent and original gift in him — yet after all 
 it is the gift which for ever divides the sheep from the 
 goats — was that of a ' hunger and thirst after righteous- 
 ness.'
 
 YOUTH 315 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 It was towards noon on a November day, and Dora 
 Lorn ax sat working at her embroidery frame in the 
 little sitting-room overlooking Market Place. The pale 
 wintry sun touched her bent head, her deftly moving 
 hand, and that device of the risen Christ circled in 
 golden flame on which she was at work. The room in 
 which she sat was old and low ; the ceiling bulged here 
 and there, the floor had unexpected slopes and declivities. 
 The furniture was of the cheapest, the commonest odds 
 and ends of a broker's shop, for the most part. There 
 was the usual horsehair suite, the usual cheap side- 
 board, and dingy druggeting of a large geometrical 
 pattern. But amid these uninviting articles there were 
 a few things which gave the room individuality — some 
 old prints of places abroad, of diiBferent shapes and 
 sizes, which partly disguised the blue and chocolate 
 paper on the walls ; some bits of foreign carving, Swiss 
 and Italian ; some eggs and shells and stuffed birds, 
 some of these last from the Vosges, some from the 
 Alps ; a cageful of canaries, singing their best against 
 the noise of Manchester ; and, lastly, an old bookcase 
 fidl of miscellaneous volumes, mostly large and wortli-
 
 3i6 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 less ' sets ' of old magazines and encyclopaedias, which 
 represented the relics of Daddy's bookselling days. 
 
 The room smelt strongly of cooking, a mingled 
 odour of boiling greens and frying onions and stored 
 apples which never deserted it, and produced a constant 
 slight sense of nausea in Dora, who, like most persons 
 of sedentary occupation, was in matters of eating and 
 digestion somewhat sensitive and delicate. From be- 
 low, too, there seemed to spread upwards a general 
 sense of bustle and disquiet. Doors banged, knives 
 and plates rattled perpetually, the great swing-door 
 into the street was for ever opening and shutting, each 
 time shaking the old, frail house with its roughly built 
 additions through and through, and there was a distant 
 skurry of voices that never paused. The restaurant 
 indeed was in full work, and Daddy's voice could be 
 heard at intervals, shouting and chattering. Dora had 
 been at work since half-past seven, marketing, giving 
 orders, making up accounts, writing bills of fare, and 
 otherwise organising the work of the day. Now she 
 had left the work for an hour or two to her father, 
 and the stout Lancashire cook with her various hand- 
 maidens. Daddy's irritable pride liked to get her out 
 of the way and make a lady of her as much as she 
 would allow, and in her secret heart she often felt that 
 her embroidery, for which she was well paid as a skilled 
 and inventive hand, furnished a securer basis for their 
 lives than this restaurant, which, in spite of its apparent 
 success, was a frequent source of dread and discomfort
 
 YOUTH 
 
 317 
 
 to her. The money obligation it involved filled her 
 sometimes with a kind of panic. She knew her father 
 so well ! 
 
 Now, as she sat absorbed in her work, sewing her 
 heart into it, for every stitch in it delighted not only 
 her skilled artistic sense but her religious feeling, little 
 waves of anxious thought swept across her one after 
 another. She was a person of timid and brooding 
 temperament, and her father's eccentricities and past 
 history provided her with much just cause for worry. 
 But to-day she was not tliinking much of him. 
 
 Again and again there came between her and her 
 silks a face, a face of careless pride and power, framed 
 in strong waves of black hair. It had once repelled 
 her quite as much as it attracted her. But at any rate, 
 ever since she had first seen it, it had taken a place 
 apart in her mind, as though in the yielding stuff of 
 memory and feeling one impression out of the thousands 
 of every day had, without warning, yet irrevocably, 
 stamped itself deeper than the rest. The owner of it 
 — David Grieve — filled her now, as always, with 
 invincible antagonisms and dissents. But still the 
 thought of him had in some gradual way become of 
 late part of her habitual consciousness, associated 
 always, and on the whole painfully associated, witli the 
 thought of Lucy Purcell. 
 
 For Lucy was such a little goose ! To think of the 
 way in which she had behaved towards young Grieve 
 in the fortnight succeeding his notice to quit, before he
 
 31 8 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 finally left Purcell's service, made Dora hot all over. 
 How could Lucy demean herself so ? and show such 
 tempers and airs towards a man who clearly did not 
 think anything at all about her ? And now she had 
 flung herself upon Dora, imploring her cousin to help 
 her, and threatening desperate things unless she and 
 David were still enabled to meet. And meanwhile 
 Purcell had flatly forbidden any communication between 
 his household and the young reprobate he had turned 
 out, whose threatened prosperity made at this moment 
 the angry preoccupation of his life. 
 
 What was Dora to do ? Was she to aid and alDet 
 Lucy, against her father's will, in pursuing David 
 Grieve ? And if in spite of all appearances the little 
 self-willed creature succeeded, and Dora were the means 
 of her marrying David, how would Dora's conscience 
 stand? Here was a j-oung man who believed in 
 nothing, and openly said so, who took part in those 
 terrible atheistical meetings and discussions, which, as 
 Father Russell had solemnly said, were like a plague- 
 centre in Manchester, drawing in and corrupting soul 
 after soul. And Dora was to help in throwing her 
 young cousin, while she was still almost a child with 
 no ^ Church principles ' to aid and protect her, into the 
 hands of this enemy of the Lord and His Church ? 
 
 Then, when it came to this point, Dora would be 
 troubled and drawn away by memories of young 
 Grieve's talk and ways, of his dashes into Market Place 
 to see Daddy since he had set up for himself, of his
 
 YOUTH 319 
 
 bold plans for the future which delighted Daddy and 
 took her breath away ; of the flash of his black eyes ; 
 the triumphant energy of his youth ; and those indica- 
 tions in him, too, which had so startled her of late 
 since they — she and he — had dropped the futile spar- 
 rings in which their acquaintance began, of an inner 
 softness, a sensitive magnetic something — indescribable. 
 
 Dora's needle paused in mid-air. Then her hand 
 dropped on her lap. A slight but charming smile — 
 born of youth, sympathy, involuntary admiration — 
 dawned on her face. She sat so for a minute or two 
 lost in reminiscence. 
 
 The clock outside struck twelve. Dora with a start 
 felt along the edge of her frame under her work and 
 brought out a book. It was a little black, worn manual 
 of prayers for various times and occasions compiled by 
 a High Church dignitary. For Dora it had a talismanic 
 virtue. She turned now to one of the ' Prayers for 
 Noonday,' made the sign of the cross, and slipped on to 
 her knees for an instant. Then she rose happily and 
 went back to her work. It was such acts as this that 
 made the thread on which her life of mystical emotion 
 was strung. 
 
 But her father was a Secularist of a pronounced 
 type, and her mother had been a rigid Baptist, old- 
 fashioned and sincere, filled with a genuine horror of 
 Papistry and all its ways. 
 
 Adrian O'Connor Lomax, to give Daddy his wliole
 
 320 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 magnificent name, was the son of a reed-maker, of Irish 
 extraction, at Hyde, and was brought up at first to 
 follow his father's trade — that of making the wire 
 ' reed,' or frame, into which the threads of the warp are 
 fastened before weaving. But such patient drudgery, 
 often continued, as it was in those days, for twelve and 
 fourteen hours out of the twenty-four, was gall and worm- 
 wood to a temperament like Daddy's. He developed a 
 taste for reading, fell in with Byron's poems, and caught 
 the fever of them ; then branched out into politics just 
 at the time of the first Reform Bill, when all over 
 Lancashire the memory of Peterloo was still burning, 
 and when men like Henry Hunt and Samuel Bamford 
 were the political heroes of every weaver's cottage. He 
 developed a taste for itinerant lecturing and preaching, 
 and presently left his family and tramped to Man- 
 chester. 
 
 Here after many vicissitudes — including an enthusi- 
 astic and on the whole creditable participation, as an 
 itinerant lecturer, in the movement for the founding of 
 Mechanics' Institutes, then spreading all over the north — 
 Daddy, to his ill-fortune, came across his future brother- 
 in-law, the bookseller Purcell. At the moment Daddy was 
 in a new and unaccustomed phase of piety. After a period 
 of revolutionary spouting, in which Byron, Tom Paine, 
 and the various publications of Richard Carlile had 
 formed his chief scriptures, a certain Baptist preacher 
 laid hold of the Irishman's mercurial sense. Daddy 
 was awakened and converted, burnt his Byron and his
 
 YOUTH 321 
 
 Tom Paine in his three-pair back with eveiy circum- 
 stance of insult and contumely, and looked about for 
 an employer worthy of one of the elect. Purcell at the 
 time had a shop in one of the main streets connecting 
 Manchester and Salford ; he was already an elder at 
 the chapel Daddy frequented ; the two made acquain- 
 tance and Lomax became Purcell's assistant. At the 
 moment the trade offered to him attracted Daddy vastly. 
 He had considerable pretensions to literature; was a 
 Shakespearian, a debater, and a haunter of a certain 
 literary symposium, held for a long time at one of the 
 old Manchester inns, and attended by most of the small 
 wits and poets of a then small and homely town. The 
 gathering had nothing saintly about it ; free drinking 
 went often hand in hand with free thought Daddy's 
 infant zeal was shocked, but Daddy's instincts were 
 invincible, and he went. 
 
 The result of the bookselling experiment has been 
 already told by Daddy himself. It was, of course, 
 inevitable. Purcell was then a young man, but in his 
 dealings with Daddy he showed precisely the same cast- 
 iron self-importance, the same slowness of brain coupled 
 with the same assumptions of an unbounded and 
 righteous authority, the same unregenerate greediness 
 in small matters of gain and loss which now in his 
 later life had made him odious to David Grieve. More- 
 over, Daddy, by a happy instinct, had at once made 
 common cause with Purcell's downtrodden sister, going 
 on even, as his passionate sense of opposition developed, 
 VOL. I. Y
 
 322 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 to make love to the poor liiimLle thing mainly for the 
 sake of annoying the brother. The crisis came ; the 
 irritated tyrant brought down a heavy hand, and 
 Daddy and Isabella disappeared together from the 
 establishment in Chapel Street. 
 
 By the time Daddy had set uj) as the husband of 
 I^Lircell's sister in a little shop precisely opposite to that 
 of his former employer, he had again thrown over all 
 pretensions to sanctity, was, on the contrary, convinced 
 afresh that all religion was one vast perennial imposture, 
 dominated, we may suppose, in this as in most other 
 matters, by the demon of hatred which now possessed 
 him towards his brother-in-law. His wife, poor soul, 
 was beginning to feel herself tied for good to the tail of 
 a comet destined to some mad career or other, and 
 quite uncontrollable by any efforts of hers. Lomax had 
 married her for the most unpromising reasons in the 
 world, and he soon tired of her, and of the trade, which 
 required a sustained effort, which he was incapable of 
 giving. As long as Purcell remained opposite, indeed, 
 hate and rivalry kept him up to the mark. He was an 
 attractive figure at that time, with his long fair hair and 
 his glancing greenish eyes ; and his queer discursive 
 talk attracted many a customer, whom he would have 
 been quite competent to keep had his character been 
 of the same profitable stuff as his ability. 
 
 But when Purcell vanished across the river into 
 Manchester, the zest of Daddy's bookselling enter- 
 prise departed also. He began to neglect his shop.
 
 YOUTH 323 
 
 was off here and there lecturing and debating, and 
 when he came back again it was plain to the wife 
 that their scanty money had been squandered on other 
 excesses than those of talk. At last the business 
 fell to ruins, and debts pressed. Then suddenly Daddy 
 was persuaded by a French commercial traveller to take 
 up his old trade of reed-making, and go and seek 
 employment across the Channel, where reed-makers 
 were said to be in demand. 
 
 In ecstasy at the idea of travel thus presented to 
 him, Daddy devoured what books about France he 
 could get hold of, and tried to t<^ach himself French. 
 Then one morning, without a word to his wife, he stole 
 downstairs and out of the shop, and was far on the 
 road to London before his flight was discovered. His 
 poor wife shed some tears, but he had ceased to care 
 for her she believed, largely because she had brought 
 him no children, and his habits had begun to threaten 
 to lead her with unpleasant rapidity to the workhouse. 
 So she took comfort, and with the help of some friends 
 set up a little stationery and fancy business, which just 
 kept her alive. 
 
 Meanwhile Lomax found no work in Picardy, 
 whither he had first gone, and ultimately wandered 
 across France to Alsace, in search of bread, a prey to 
 all possible hardships and privations. But nothing 
 daunted him. The glow of adventure and romance 
 was on every landscape. Cathedrals, forests, the wide 
 river-plains of central France, with their lights and dis- 
 
 Y 2
 
 324 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 tances, — all things on this new earth and under these 
 new heavens ' haunted him like a passion.' He 
 travelled in perpetual delight, making love no doubt 
 here and there to some passing Mignon, and starving 
 with the gayest of hearts. 
 
 At Mulhausen he found work, and being ill and 
 utterly destitute, submitted to it for a while. But as 
 soon as he had got back his health and saved some 
 money, he set out again, walking this time, staff in 
 hand, over the whole Ehine country and into the 
 Netherlands. There in the low Dutch plains he fell ill 
 again, and the beauty of the Rhineland was no longer 
 there to stand like a spell between him and the pains 
 of poverty. He seemed to come to himself, after a 
 dream in which the world and all its forms had passed 
 him by ' apparelled in celestial light.' And the process 
 of self-finding was attended by some at least of those 
 salutary pangs which eternally belong to it. He sud- 
 denly took a resolution, crept on board a coal smack 
 going from a Dutch port to Grimsby, toiled across 
 Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, and appeared one evening, 
 worn to a shadow, in his wife's little shop in Salford. 
 
 He was received as foolish women in whom there is 
 no ineradicable taint of cruelty or hate will always re- 
 ceive the prodigal who returns. And when Daddy had 
 been fed and clothed, he turned out for a time to be so 
 amiable, so grateful a Daddy, such good company, as he 
 sat in the chair by his wife's fire and told stories of his 
 travels to her and anybody else who might drop in,
 
 YOUTH 325 
 
 that not only the wife but the neighbourhood was ap- 
 peased. His old friends came back to him, he began 
 to receive overtures to write in some of the humbler 
 papers, to lecture on his adventures in the Yorkshire 
 and Lancashire towns. Daddy expanded, harangued, 
 grew daily in good looks and charm under his wife's 
 eyes. 
 
 At last one day the papers came in with news 
 of Louis Philippe's overthrow. Daddy grew restless, and 
 began to study the foreign news with avidity. Revolu- 
 tion spread, and what with democracy abroad and 
 Chartism at home, there was more stimulus in the air 
 than such brains as Daddy's could rightly stand. One 
 May day he walked into the street, looked hesitatingly 
 up and down it, shading his eyes against the sun. Then 
 with a shake of his long hair, as of one throwing off a 
 weight, he drew his hat from under his arm, put it on. 
 felt in his pockets, and set off at a run, head downwards, 
 while poor Isabella Lomax was sweeping her kitchen. 
 During the next few days he was heard of, rumour said, 
 now here, now there, but one might as well have 
 attempted to catch and hold the Pied Piper. 
 
 He was away for rather more than twenty months. 
 Then one day, as before, a lean, emaciated, sun-browned 
 figure came slowly up the Salford street, looking for a 
 familiar door. It was Daddy. He went into the shop, 
 which was empty, stared, with a countenance in which 
 relief and repulsion were oddly mingled, at the boxes 
 of stationery, at the dusty counter with its string and
 
 326 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 glass cases, when suddenly the inside door, which was 
 standing ajar, was pushed stealthily inwards, and a child 
 stood in the doorway. It was a tottering baby of a 
 year old, holding in one fat hand a crust of bread which 
 it had been sucking. When it saw the stranger it looked 
 at him gravely for a second. Then without a trace of 
 fear or shyness it came forward, holding up its crust 
 appealingly, its rosy chin and lips still covered with 
 bread-crumbs. 
 
 Daddy stared at the apparition, which seemed to 
 him the merest witchcraft. For it was himself, 
 dwarfed to babyhood and pinafores. His eyes, his 
 prominent brow, his colour, his trick of holding the 
 head — they were all there, absurdly there. 
 
 He gave a cry, which was answered by another cry 
 from behind. His wife stood in the door. The stout, 
 foolish Isabella was white to the lips. Even she felt 
 the awe, the poetry of the moment. 
 
 ' Aye,' she said, trembling. ' Aye ! it's yourn. It 
 was born seven months after yo left us.' 
 
 Daddy, without greeting his wife, threw himself 
 down by the babe, and burst into tears. He had come 
 back in a still darker mood than on his first return, his 
 egotistical belief in himself more rudely shaken than 
 ever by the attempts, the failures, the miseries of the 
 last eighteen months. For one illuminating moment 
 he saw that he was a poor fool, and that his youth was 
 squandered and gone. But in its stead, there — dropped 
 suddenly beside him by the forgiving gods — stood this
 
 YOUTH 327 
 
 new youth sprung from his, and all his own, this 
 child — Dora. 
 
 He took to her with a passion which the trembling 
 Isabella thought a great deal too excessive to last. But 
 though the natural Daddy very soon reappeared, with all 
 the aggravating peculiarities which belonged to him, the 
 passion did last, and the truant strayed no more. He 
 set up a small printing business with the help of some 
 old customers — it was always characteristic of the man 
 that, be his failings what they might, he never lacked 
 friends — and with lecturing and ^viiting, and Isabella's 
 shop, they struggled on somehow. Isabella's life was 
 hard enough. Daddy was only good when he was 
 happy ; and at other times he dipped recklessly into 
 vices which would have been the ruin of them all had 
 they been persistent. But by some kind fate he always 
 emerged, and more and more, as years went on, omng to 
 Dora. He drank, but not hopelessly ; he gambled, but 
 not past salvation ; and there was generally, as we have 
 said, some friend at hand to pick the poor besmirched 
 featherbrain out of the mire. 
 
 Dora grew up uot unhappily. There were shifts and 
 privations to put up with ; there were stormy days 
 when life seemed a hurricane of words and tears. But 
 there were bright spaces in between, when Daddy had 
 good resolutions, or a little more money than usual ; 
 and with every year the daughter instinctively knew 
 that her spell over her father strengthened. She was 
 on the whole a serious child, with fair pale hair, much
 
 328 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 given to straying in long loose ends about her promi- 
 nent brow and round cheeks. Yet at the Baptist 
 school, whither she was sent, she was certainly popular. 
 She had a passion for the little ones ; and her grej— 
 blue eyes, over which in general the fringed lids 
 drooped too much, had a charming trick of sudden 
 smiles, when the soft soul behind looked for an instant 
 clearly and blithely out. At home she was a little round- 
 shouldered drudge in her mother's service. At chapel 
 she sat very patiently and happily under a droning 
 minister, and when the inert and despondent Isabella 
 would have let most of her religious duties drop, in the 
 face of many troubles and a scoffing husband, the child 
 of fourteen gently and persistently held her to them. 
 
 At last, however, when Dora was seventeen, Isabella 
 died of cancer, and Daddy, Avho had been much shaken 
 and terrified by her sufferings in her last illness, fell for 
 a while into an irritable melancholy, from which not 
 even Dora could divert him. It was then that he 
 seemed for the first time to cross the line which had 
 hitherto divided him from ruin. The drinking at the 
 White Horse, where the literary circle met of which 
 Lomax had been so long an ornament, had been of late 
 going from bad to worse. The households of the wits 
 concerned were up in arms ; neighbourhood and police 
 began to assert themselves. One night the trembling 
 Dora waited hour after hour for her father. About 
 midnight he staggered in, maddened with drink and 
 fresh from a skirmish with the police. Finding her there
 
 YOUTH 329 
 
 waiting for him, pale and silent, he did what he had 
 never done before under any stress of trouble — struck 
 and swore at her. Dora sank down with a groan, and 
 in another minute Lomax was dashing his head against 
 the wall, vowing that he would beat his brains out. In 
 the hours that followed, Dora's young soul was stretched 
 as it were on a rack, from which it rose, not weakened, 
 but with new powers and a loftier stature. All her girlish 
 levities and illusions seemed to drop away from her. 
 She saw her mission, and took her squalid Oedipus in 
 charge. 
 
 Next morning she went to some of her father's 
 friends, unknown to Daddy, and came back with a light 
 in her blanched face, bearing the offer of some work on 
 a Radical paper at Leicester. Daddy, now broken and 
 miserable, submitted, and off" they went. 
 
 At Leicester the change of moral and physical 
 climate produced for a while a wonderful effect. Daddy 
 found himself marvellously at ease among the Secularist 
 and Radical stockingers of the town, and soon became 
 well known to them as a being half butt, half oracle. 
 Dora set herself to learn dressmaking, and did her best 
 to like the new place and the new people. It was 
 at Leicester, a place seething with social experiment 
 in its small provincial way, with secularism, Owenism, 
 anti-vaccination, and much else, that Lomax fell a 
 victim to one 'ism the more — to vegetarianism. It 
 was there that, during an editorial absence, and in the
 
 330 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 first fervour of conversion, Daddy so belaboured a car- 
 nivorous world in the columns of the ' Penny Banner ' for 
 which he worked, and so grotesquely and persistently 
 reduced all the problems of the time to terms of nitrogen 
 and albumen, that curt dismissal came upon him, and 
 for a time Dora saw nothing but her precarious earn- 
 ings between them and starvation. It was then also 
 that, by virtue of that qneer charm he could always 
 exercise when he pleased, he laid hold on a young 
 Radical manufacturer and got out of him a loan of 
 200Z. for the establishment of a vegetarian restaurant 
 wherein Leicester was to be taught how to feed. 
 
 But Leicester, alas ! remained unregenerate. In 
 the midst of Daddy's preparations a commercial 
 traveller, well known both to Manchester and Leicester, 
 repeated to him one day a remark of Purcell's, to the 
 effect that since Daddy's migration Manchester had 
 been well rid of a vagabond, and he, Purcell, of a 
 family disgrace. Daddy, bursting with fatuous rage, 
 and possessed besides of the wildest dreams of fortune 
 on the strength of his 200/., straightway made up his 
 mind to return to Manchester, ' pull Purcell's nose,' 
 and plant himself and his prosperity that was to be in 
 the bookseller's eyes. He broke in upon Dora at her 
 work, and poured into her astonished ears a stream of 
 talk, marked by a mad inventiveness, partly in the 
 matter of vegetarian receipts, still more in that of 
 Purcell's future discomforts. Wlien Daddy was once 
 launched into a subject that suited him, he was inex-
 
 YOUTH 331 
 
 haustible. His phrases flowed for ever ; of words he 
 was always sure. Like a certain French talker, ' his 
 sentences were like cats ; he showered them into air 
 and they found their feet without trouble.' 
 
 Dora sat through it, bewildered and miserable. Go 
 back to Manchester where they had been so unhappy, 
 where the White Horse and its crew were waiting for 
 her father, simply to get into debt and incur final ruin 
 for the sake of a mad fancy she humoured but could 
 not believe in, and a still madder thirst for personal 
 vengeance on a man who was more than a match for 
 anything Daddy could do ! She was in despair. 
 
 But Daddy was obdurate, brutal in his determination 
 to have his way ; and when she angered him with her 
 remonstrances, he turned upon her with an irritable — 
 
 ' I know what it is — damn it ! It's that Puseyite 
 gang you've taken up with — you think of nothing but 
 them. As if you couldn't find antics and petticoats 
 and priests in Manchester — they're everywhere — like 
 weeds. Wherever there's a dunghill of human credu- 
 lity they swarm.' 
 
 Dora looked proudly at her father, as though dis- 
 daining to reply, gentle creature that she was ; then 
 she bent again over her work, and a couple of tears 
 fell on the seam she was sewing. 
 
 Aye, it was true enough. In leaving Leicester, 
 after these two years, she was leaving what to her had 
 been a spiritual birthplace, — tearing asunder a new 
 and tender growth of the soul .
 
 332 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 This was how it had come about. 
 
 On her first arrival in Leicester, in a milieu^ that is 
 to say, where at the time ' Gavroche,' as M. Eenan 
 calls him — the street philosopher who is no less certain 
 and no more rational than the street preacher — reigned 
 supreme, where her Secularist father and his associates, 
 hot-headed and early representatives of a phase of 
 thought which has since then found much abler, though 
 hardly less virulent, expression in such a paper, say, as 
 the ' National Eeformer,' were for ever rending and 
 trampling on all the current religious images and ideas, 
 Dora shrank into herself more and more. She had 
 always been a Baptist because her mother was. But 
 in her deep reaction against her father's associates, the 
 chapel which she frequented did not now satisfy her. 
 She hungered for she knew not what, certain fastidious 
 artistic instincts awakening the while in unexpected 
 ways. 
 
 Then one Easter Eve, as she came back from an 
 errand into the outskirts of the town, she passed a 
 little iron church standing in a very poor neighbour- 
 hood, where, as she knew, a ' Puseyite ' curate in 
 charge officiated, and where a good many disturbances 
 which had excited the populace had taken place. 
 She went in. The curate, a long, gaunt figure, of 
 a familiar monkish type, was conducting ^ vespers ' for 
 the benefit of some twenty hearers, mostly women in 
 black. The little church was half decorated for Easter, 
 though the altar had still its Lenten bareness. Some-
 
 YOUTH 333 
 
 thing in the ordering of the place, in its colours, its 
 scents, in the voice of the priest, in the short address 
 he delivered after the service, dwelling in a tone of 
 intimate emotion, the tone of the pastor to the souls 
 he guides and knows, on the preparation needful for 
 the Easter Eucharist, struck home to Dora. Xext day 
 she was present at the Easter festival. Xever had 
 religion spoken so touchingly to her before as through 
 these hymns, these flowers, this incense, this Eucharistic 
 ceremonial wherein — being the midday celebration — 
 the congregation were merely hushed spectators of the 
 most pathetic and impressive act in the religious 
 symbolism of mankind. In the dark corner where 
 she had hidden herself, Dora felt the throes of some 
 new birth within her. In six weeks from that time 
 she had been admitted, after instruction, to the 
 Anglican communion. 
 
 Thenceforward another existence began for this child 
 of English Dissent, in whom, however, some old Celtic 
 leaven seems to have always kept up a vague unrest, 
 till the way of mystery and poetry was found. 
 
 Daddy — the infidel Daddy — stormed a good deal, 
 and lamented himself still more, when these facts be- 
 came known to him. Dora had become a superstitious, 
 priest-ridden dolt, of no good to him or anyone else any 
 more. What, indeed, was to become of him ? Natural 
 affection cannot stand against the priest. A daughter 
 cannot love her father and go to confession. Down 
 with the abomination— efA(i.e2 Viafdme !
 
 334 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 Dora smiled sadly and went her way. Against her 
 sweet silent tenacity Daddy measured himself in vain. 
 She would be a good daughter to him , but she would 
 be a good churchwoman first. He began to perceive in 
 her that germ of detachment from things earthly and 
 human which all ceremonialism produces, and in a 
 sudden terror gave way and opposed her no more. 
 Afterwards, in a curious way, he came even to relish 
 the change in her. The friends it brought her, the 
 dainty ordering of the little flower-decked oratory she 
 made for herself in one corner of her bare attic room, 
 the sweet sobriety and refinement which her new loves 
 and aspirations and self-denials brought with them into 
 the house, touched the poetical instincts which were 
 always dormant in the queer old fellow, and besides 
 flattered some strong and secret ambitions which he 
 cherished for his daughter. It appeared to him to have 
 raised her socially, to have made a lady of her — this 
 joining the Church. Well, the women must have some 
 religious bag or other to run their heads into, and the 
 Church bag perhaps was the most seemly. 
 
 On the day of their return to Manchester, Daddy, 
 sitting with crossed arms and legs in a corner of the 
 railway carriage, might have sat for a fairy-book illus- 
 tration of Rumpelstiltzchen. His old peaked hat, 
 which he had himself brought from the Tyrol, fell 
 forward over his frowning brow, his cloak was caught 
 fiercely about him, and, as the quickly-passing mill-
 
 YOUTH 335 
 
 towns began to give notice of Manchester as soon as 
 the Derbyshire vales were left behind, his glittering 
 eyes disclosed an inward fever — a fever of contrivance 
 and of hate. He was determined to succeed, and 
 equally determined to make his success Purcell's 
 annoyance. 
 
 Dora sat opposite, with her bird-cage on her knee, 
 looking sad and weary. She had left behind, perhaps 
 for ever, the dear friends who had opened to her the 
 way of holiness, and guided her first steps. Her eyes 
 filled with tears of gratitude and emotion as she thought 
 of them. 
 
 Two things only were pleasant to remember. One 
 was that the Church embroidery she had begun in her 
 young zeal at Leicester, using her odds and ends of time, 
 to supplement the needs of a struggling church de- 
 pending entirely on voluntary contributions, was now 
 probably to become her trade. For she had shown 
 remarkable aptitude for it ; and she earned introduc- 
 tions to a large church-furniture shop in Manchester 
 which would almost certainly employ her. 
 
 The other was the fact that somewhere in Manchester 
 she had a girl-cousin — Lucy Purcell — who must be about 
 sixteen. Purcell had married after his migration to 
 Half Street ; his wife proved to be delicate and died in 
 a few years; this little girl was all that was left to him. 
 Dora had only seen her once or twice in her life. The 
 enmity between Lomax and l\ircell of course kept the 
 families apart, and, after her mother's early death.
 
 336 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 Purcell sent his daughter to a boarding-school and so 
 washed his hands of the troable of her bringing up. 
 But in spite of these barriers Dora well remembered a 
 slim, long-armed schoolgirl, much dressed and becurled, 
 who once in a by-street of Salford had run after her 
 and, looking round carefully to see that no one was 
 near, had thrust an eager face into hers and kissed her 
 suddenly. ' Dora, — is your mother better ? I wish I 
 could come and see you. Oh, it's horrid of people to 
 quarrel ! But I mustn't stay, — some one '11 see, and 
 I should just catch it! Good-bye, Dora!' and so 
 another kiss, very hasty and frightened, but very 
 welcome to the cheek it touched. 
 
 As they neared Manchester, Dora, in her loneliness 
 of soul, thought very tenderly of Lucy — wondered how 
 she had grown up, whether she was pretty and many 
 other things. She had certainly been a pretty child. 
 Of course they must know each other and be friends. 
 Dora could not let her father's feud come between her 
 and her only relation. Purcell might keep them apart ; 
 but she would show him she meant no harm ; and she 
 would bring her father round — she would and must. 
 
 Two years had gone by. Of Daddy's two objects in 
 leaving Leicester, one had so far succeeded better than 
 any rational being would have foreseen. 
 
 On the first morning after their arrival he went out, 
 giving Dora the slip lest she might cramp him incon^ 
 veniently in his decision ; and came back radiant, having
 
 YOUTH 337 
 
 taken a deserted seed-shop in Market Place, which had 
 a long, irregular addition at the back, formerly a ware- 
 house, providentially suited, so Daddy declared, to the 
 purposes of a restaurant. The rent he had promised 
 to give seemed to Dora a crime, considering their 
 resources. The thought of it, the terror of the servants 
 he was engaging, the knowledge of the ridicule and 
 blame with which their old friends regarded her 
 father's proceedings, these things kept the girl awake 
 night after night. 
 
 But he would hear no remonstrances, putting all 
 she had to say aside with an arrogant boastfulness, 
 which never failed. 
 
 In they went. Dora set her teeth and did her 
 best, keeping as jealous a watch on the purse-strings 
 as she could, and furnishing their three rooms above 
 the shop for as few shillings as might be, while Daddy 
 was painting and decorating, composing menus^ and 
 ransacking recipes with the fever of an artist, now 
 writing letters to the Manchester papers, or lectur- 
 ing to audiences in the Mechanics' Institute and the 
 different working men's clubs, and now plastering the 
 shop-front with grotesque labels, or posing at his own 
 doorway and buttonholing the passers-by in the Tyrolese 
 brigand's costume which was his favourite garb. 
 
 The thing took. There is a certain mixture of 
 
 prophet and mountebank which can be generally 
 
 counted upon to hit the popular fancy, and Daddy 
 
 attained to it. Moreover, the moment was favourable. 
 
 VOL. I. Z
 
 338 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 After the terrible strain of the cotton-famine and the 
 horrors of the cholera, Manchester was prosperous 
 again. Trade was brisk, and the passage of the new 
 Keform Bill had given a fi-esh outlet and impulse to 
 the artisan mind which did but answer to the social 
 and intellectual advance made by the working classes 
 since '32. The huge town was growing fast, was 
 seething with life, with ambitions, wdtli all the passions 
 aud ingenuities that belong to gain and money-making 
 and the race for success. It was pre-eminently a city of 
 young men of all nationalities, three-fourths constantly 
 engaged in the clim^e for money, according to their 
 degrees — here for shillings, there for sovereigns, there for 
 thousands. In such a milieu any man has a chance 
 who offers to deal afresh on new terms with those daily 
 needs which both goad and fetter the struggling mul- 
 titude at every step. Vegetarianism had, in fact, been 
 spreading in Manchester; one or two prominent 
 workmen's papers were preaching it; and just before 
 Daddy's advent there had been a great dinner in a 
 public hall, where the speedy advent of a regenerate 
 and frugivorous mankind, with length of days in its 
 right hand, and a captivating abundance of small 
 moneys in its waistcoat pocket, had been freely and 
 ardently prophesied. 
 
 So Daddy for once seized the moment, and suc- 
 ceeded like the veriest Philistine. On the opening day 
 the restaurant was crowded from morning till night. 
 Dora, with her two cooks in the suffocating kitchen
 
 YOUTH 
 
 339 
 
 behind, had to send out the pair of panting, per- 
 spiring kitchen-boys again and again for fresh sup- 
 plies ; while Daddy, at his wits' end for waiters, after 
 haranguing a group of customers on the philosophy of 
 living, amid a tumult of mock cheers and laughter, 
 would rush in exasperated to Dora, to say that never 
 again would he trust her niggardly ways — she would 
 be the ruin of him with her economies. 
 
 When at night the doors were sliut at last on the 
 noise and the crowd, and Daddy sat, with his full 
 cash-box open on his knee, while the solitary gaslight 
 that remained threw a fantastic and colossal shadow of 
 him over the rough floor of the restaurant, Dora came 
 up to him dropping with fatigue. He looked at her, 
 his gaunt face working, and burst into tears. 
 
 ^ Dora, we never had any money before, not when — 
 when — your mother was alive.' 
 
 And she knew that by a strange reaction there had 
 come suddenly upon him the memory of those ghastly 
 months when she and he through the long hours of 
 every day had been forced — baffled and helpless — to 
 watch her mother's torture, and when the sordid struggle 
 for daily bread was at its worst, robbing death of all its 
 dignity, and pity of all its power to help. 
 
 Do what she would, she could hardly get him to give 
 up the money and go to bed. He was utterly unstrung, 
 and his triumph for the moment lay bitter in the mouth. 
 
 It was now two years since that opening day. 
 
 z 2
 
 340 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 During that time the Parlour had become a centre after 
 its sort — a scandal to some and a delight to others. The 
 native youth got his porridge, and apple pie, and baked 
 potato there ; but the place was also largely haunted 
 by the foreign clerks of Manchester. There was, for 
 instance, a company of young Frenchmen who lunched 
 there habitually, and in whose society the delighted 
 Daddy caught echoes from that unprejudiced life of 
 Paris or Lyons, which had amazed and enlightened his 
 youth. The place assumed a stamp and character. To 
 Daddy the development of his own popularity, which 
 was like the emergence of a new gift, soon became a 
 passion. He deliberately ^ ran ' his own eccentricities 
 as part of the business. Hence his dress, his menus, 
 his advertisements, and all the various antics which 
 half regaled, half scandalised the neighbourhood. Dora 
 marvelled and winced, and by dint of an habitual 
 tolerance retained the power of stopping some occa- 
 sional enormity. 
 
 As to finances, they were not making their fortune ; 
 far from it ; but to Dora's amazement, considering her 
 own inexperience and her father's flightiness, they had 
 paid their way and something more. She was no born 
 woman of business, as any professional accountant ex- 
 amining her books might have discovered. But she 
 had a passionate determination to defraud no one, and 
 somehow, through much toil her conscience did the 
 work. Meanwhile every month it astonished her freshly 
 that they two should be succeeding ! Success was so
 
 YOUTH 341 
 
 little in the tradition of their tattered and variegated 
 lives. Could it last ? At the bottom of her mind lay 
 a constant presentiment of new change, founded no 
 doubt on her knowledge of her father. 
 
 But outwardly there was little to justify it. The 
 craving for drink seemed to have left him altogether — 
 a not uncommon effect of this particular change of diet. 
 And his hatred of Purcell, though in itself it had proved 
 quite unmanageable by all her arts, had done nobody 
 much harm. In a society dependent on law and police 
 there are difficulties in the way of a man's dealing 
 primitively with his enemy. There had been one or 
 two awkward meetings between the two in the open 
 street ; and at the Parlour, among his special intimates, 
 Daddy had elaborated a Purcell myth of a Pecksniffian 
 character which his invention perpetually enriched. 
 On the whole, however, it was in his liking for young 
 Grieve, originally a casual customer at the restaurant, 
 that Dora saw the chief effects of the feud. He had 
 taken the lad up eagerly as soon as he had discovered 
 both his connection with Purcell and his daring re- 
 bellious temper; had backed him up in all his quarrels 
 with his master ; had taken him to the Hall of Science, 
 and introduced him to the speakers there ; and had 
 generally paraded him as a secularist convert, snatched 
 from the very jaws of the Baptist. 
 
 And now ! — now that David was in open opposition, 
 attracting Purcell's customers, takiug Purcell's water, 
 Daddy was in a tumuH; of delight : wheeling ofi' old
 
 342 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 books of liis own, such as ' The Journal of Theology ' 
 and the ' British Controversialist,' to fill up David's 
 stall, running down whenever business was slack to see 
 how the lad was getting on ; and meanwhile advertising 
 him with his usual extravagance among the frequenters 
 of the Parlour. 
 
 All through, however, or rather since Miss Purcell 
 had returned from school, Dora and her little cousin 
 Lucy had been allowed to meet. Lomax saw his 
 daughter depart on her visits to Half Street, in silence ; 
 Purcell, when he first recognised her, hardly spoke to 
 her. Dora believed, what was in fact the truth, that 
 each regarded her as a means of keeping an eye on 
 the other. She conveyed information from the hostile 
 camp-— therefore she was let alone.
 
 YOUTH 343 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 ' Why— Lucy ! ' 
 
 Dora was still bending over her work when a well- 
 known tap at the door startled her meditations. 
 
 Lucy put her head in, and, finding Dora alone, came 
 in with a look of relief. Settling herself in a chair 
 opposite Dora, she took off her hat, smoothed the coils 
 of hair to which it had been pinned, unbuttoned the 
 smart little jacket of pilot cloth, and threw back the 
 silk handkerchief inside ; and all with a feverish haste 
 and irritation as though everything she touched vexed 
 her. 
 
 ' What's the matter, Lucy ? ' said Dora, after a little 
 pause. At the moment of Lucy's entrance she had 
 been absorbed in a measurement. 
 
 ' Nothing ! ' said Lucy quickly. ' Dora, you've got 
 your hair loose ! ' 
 
 Dora put up her hand patiently. She was accus- 
 tomed to be put to rights. It was characteristic at 
 once of her dreaminess and her powers of self-discipline 
 that she was fairly orderly, though she had great diffi- 
 culty in being so. Without a constant struggle, she 
 would have had loose plaits and hanging strings about
 
 344 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 her always. Lucy's trimness was a perpetual marvel to 
 her. It was like the contrast between the soft in- 
 determinate lines of her charming face and Lucy's 
 small, sharply cut features. 
 
 Lucy, still restless, began tormenting the feather 
 in her hat. 
 
 ' When are you going to finish that, Dora ? ' she 
 asked, nodding towards the frame. 
 
 ^ Oh it won't be very long now,' said Dora, putting 
 her head on one side that she might take a general 
 survey, at once loving and critical, of her work. 
 
 'You oughtn't to sit so close at it,' said Lucy 
 decidedly ; ' you'll spoil your complexion.' 
 
 ' IVe none to spoil.' 
 
 ' Oh, yes, you have, Dora — that's so silly of you. 
 You aren't sallow a bit. It's pretty to be pale like 
 that. Lots of people say so — not quite so pale as you 
 are sometimes, perhaps — but I know why tliai is,' said 
 Lucy, with a half-malicious emphasis. 
 
 A slight pink rose in Dora's cheeks, but she bent 
 over her frame and said nothing. 
 
 ' Does your clergyman iell you to fast in Lent, 
 Dora — who tells you ? ' 
 
 ' The Church ! ' replied Dora, scandalised and look- 
 ing up with bright eyes. 'I wish you understood 
 things a little more, Lucy.' 
 
 ' I can't,' said Lucy, with a pettish sigh, * and I 
 don't care twopence ! ' 
 
 She threw herself back in her rickety chair. Her
 
 YOUTH 345 
 
 arm dropped over the side, and slie lay staring at the 
 ceiling. Dora went on with her work in silence for a 
 minute, and then looked up to see a tear dropping from 
 Lucy's cheek on to the horsehair covering of the 
 chair. 
 
 ' Lucy, what is the matter ? — I knew there was some- 
 thing wrong ! ' 
 
 Lucy sat up and groped energetically for her 
 handkerchief 
 
 ' You wouldn't care,' she said, her lips quivering — 
 ' nobody cares ! ' 
 
 And, sinking down again, she hid her face and 
 fairly burst out sobbing. Dora, in alarm, pushed aside 
 her frame and tried to caress and console her. But 
 Lucy held her off, and in a second or two was angrily 
 drying her eyes. 
 
 ' Oh, you can't do any good, Dora— not the least 
 good. It's father — you know well enough what it is — 
 I shall never get on with father if I live to be a 
 hundred ! ' 
 
 ' Well, you haven't had long to try in,' said Dora, 
 smiling. 
 
 ' Quite long enough to know,' replied Lucy, 
 drearily. ' I know I shall have a horrid life — I must. 
 Nobody can help it. Do you know we've got another 
 shopman, Dora ? ' 
 
 The tone of childish scorn she threw into the ques- 
 tion was inimitable. Dora with difficulty kept from 
 laughing.
 
 346 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 'Well, what's he like?' 
 
 ' Lihe ? He's like — like nothing,' said Lucy, whose 
 vocabulary was not extensive. ' He's fat and ugly — 
 wears spectacles. Father says he's a treasure — to me 
 — and then when they're in the shoj^ I hear him going 
 on at him like anything for being a stupid. And I have 
 to give the creature tea when father's away. He's 
 so shy he always upsets something. Mary Ann and I 
 have to clear up after him as though he were a school- 
 child. — And father gets in a regular passion if I ask 
 him about the dance — and there's a missionary tea next 
 week, and he's made me take a table — and he wants 
 me to teach in Sunday School — and the minister's wife 
 has been talking to him about my dress — and — and — 
 No, I ca/ii't stand it, Dora — I can't and I won't ! ' 
 
 And Lucy, gulping down fresh tears, sat intensely 
 upright, and looked frowningly at Dora as though 
 defying her to take the matter lightly. 
 
 Dora was perplexed. Deep in her dove-like soul 
 lay the fiercest views about Dissent — that rent in the 
 seamless vesture of Christ, as she had learnt to con- 
 sider it. Her mother had been a Baptist till her death, 
 she herself till she was grown up. But now she had 
 all the zeal — nay, even the rancour — of the convert. 
 It was one of her inmost griefs that her own change 
 had not come earlier — before her mother's death. 
 Then perhaps her mother, her poor — poor — mother, 
 might have changed with her. It went against her to 
 urge Lucy to make herself a good Baptist.
 
 YOUTH 347 
 
 ' It's no wonder Uncle Tom wants you to do what 
 he likes,' she said slowly. ' But if you don't take to 
 chapel, Lucy — if you want something different, per- 
 haps ' 
 
 ' Oh, I don't want any churchy thank you,' cried 
 Lucy, up in arms. ' I don't want oMyhody ordering me 
 about. Why can't I go my own way a bit, and amuse 
 myself as I please ? It is too, too bad ! ' 
 
 Dora did not know what more to say. She went on 
 with her work, thinking about it all. Suddenly Lucy 
 astonished her by a question in another voice. 
 ' Have you seen Mr. Grieve's shop, Dora ? ' 
 Dora looked up. 
 
 ' No. Father's been there a good many times. He 
 says it's capital for a beginniug and he's sure to get on 
 fast. There's one or two very good sort of customers 
 been coming lately. There's the Earl of Driffield, I 
 think it is — don't you remember, Lucy, it was he gave 
 that lecture with the magic lantern at the Institute 
 you and I went to last summer. He's a queer sort of 
 gentleman. Well, he's been coming several times and 
 giving orders. xA.nd there's some of the college gentle- 
 men ; oh, and a lot of others. They all seem to think 
 
 he's so clever, father says ' 
 
 ' I know the Earl of Driffield quite well,' said Lucy 
 loftily. ' He used to be always coming to our place, 
 and I've tied up his books for him sometimes. I don't 
 see what's the good of being an earl — not to g(j about 
 like that. And father says he's got a grand place near
 
 348 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 Stalybridge too. Well, if hen gone to Mr. Grieve, 
 father '11 be just mad.' Lucy pursed up her small mouth 
 with energy. Dora evaded the subject. 
 
 'He says when he's quite settled,' she resumed 
 presently, ' we're to go and have supper with him for a 
 house-warming.' 
 
 Lucy looked ready to cry again. 
 
 ' He couldn't ask me — of course he couldn't,' she 
 said, indistinctly. ' Dora — Dora ! ' 
 
 ' Well ? Oh, don't mix up my silks, Lucy ; I shall 
 never get them right again.' 
 
 Lucy reluctantly put them down. 
 
 ' Do you think, Dora, Mr. Grieve cares anything at 
 all about me ? ' she said at last, hurrying out the words, 
 and looking Dora in the face, very red and bold. 
 
 Dora laughed outright. 
 
 ' I knew you were going to ask that ! ' she said. 
 ' Perhaps I've been asking myself ! ' 
 
 Lucy said nothing, but the tears dropped again 
 down her cheeks and on to her small quivering hands — 
 all the woman awake in her. 
 
 Dora pushed her frame away, and put her arm 
 round her cousin, quite at a loss what to say for the 
 best. 
 
 Another woman would have told Lucy plumply 
 that she was a little fool ; that in the first place young 
 Grieve had never shown any signs of making love to 
 her at all ; and that, in the second, if he had, her father 
 would never let her marry him without a struggle which
 
 YOUTH 
 
 349 
 
 nobody could suppose Lucy capable of waging with a 
 man like Purcell. It was all a silly fancy, the whim of a 
 green girl, which would make her miserable for nothing. 
 Mrs. Alderman Head, for instance, Dora's chaperon for 
 the Institute dance, the sensible, sharp-tongued wife of 
 a wholesale stationer in Market Street, would certainly 
 have taken this view of the matter, and communicated 
 it to Lucy with no more demur than if you had asked 
 her, say, for her opinion on the proper season for bottling 
 gooseberries. But Dora, whose inmost being was 
 one tremulous surge of feeling and emotion, could not 
 approach any matter of love and marriage without a 
 thrill, without a sense of tragedy almost. Besides, 
 like Lucy, she was very young still — ^just twenty — and 
 youth answers to youth. 
 
 ' You know Uncle Tom wouldn't like it a bit, Lucy,' 
 she began in her perplexity. 
 
 ' I don't care ! ' cried Lucy, passionately. ' Girls 
 can't marry to please their fathers. I should have to 
 wait, I suppose. I would get my own way somehow. 
 But what's the good of talking about it, Dora ? I'm 
 sick of thinking about it — sick of everything. He'll 
 marry somebody else — I know he will — and I shall 
 break my heart, or ' 
 
 * Marry somebody else, too,' suggested Dora slyly. 
 
 Lucy drew herself angrily away, and had to be 
 soothed into forgiving her cousin. The child had, in 
 fact, thought and worried herself by now into such a 
 sincere belief in her own passion, that there was nothing
 
 350 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 for it but to take it seriously. Dora yielded herself to 
 Lucy's tears and her own tenderness. She sat ponder- 
 ing. 
 
 Then, suddenly, she said something very different 
 from what Lucy expected her to say. 
 
 ' Oh ! if I could s^et him to 2:0 and talk to Father 
 Russell ! He's so wonderful with young men.' 
 
 Her hand dropped on to her knee ; she looked 
 away from Lucy out of the window, her sweet face one 
 longing. 
 
 Lucy was startled, and somewhat annoyed. In her 
 disgust with her father and her anxiety to attract 
 David's notice, she had so entirely forgotten his religious 
 delinquencies that it seemed fussy and intrusive on 
 Dora's part to make so much of them. She instinctively 
 resented, too, what sounded to her like a tone of pro- 
 prietary interest. It was not Dora that was his friend 
 — it was she ! 
 
 ' I don't see what you have to do with his opinions, 
 Dora,' she said stiffly ; ' he isn't rude to you now as he 
 used to be. Young men are always wild a bit at first.' 
 
 And she tossed her head with all the worldly 
 wisdom of seventeen. 
 
 Dora sighed and was silent. She fell to her work 
 again, while Lucy wandered restlessly about the room. 
 Presently the child stopped short. 
 
 ' Oh ! look here, Dora ' 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 ' Do come round with me and look at some spring
 
 YOUTH 351 
 
 patterns I've got. You might just as well. I know 
 you've been slaving your eyes out, and it's a nice day.' 
 
 Dora hesitated, but finally consented. She had 
 been at work for many hours in hot rooms, and meant 
 to work a good many more yet before night. A break 
 would revive her, and there was ample time before 
 the three o'clock dinner which she and her father took 
 together after the midday rush of the restaurant was 
 over. So she put on her things. 
 
 On their way Dora looked into the kitchen. Everv- 
 thing was in full work. A stout, red-faced woman 
 was distributing and superintending. On the long 
 charcoal stove which Daddy under old Barbier's advice 
 had just put up, on the hot plates near, and the 
 glowing range in the background, innumerable pans 
 were simmering and steaming. Here was a table 
 covered with stewed fruits ; there another laden with 
 round vegetable pies just out of the oven — while a heap 
 of tomatoes on a third lent their scarlet to the busy 
 picture. Some rays of wintry sun had slipped in 
 through the high windows, and were contending with 
 the steam of the pies and the smoke from the cooking. 
 And in front of all on an upturned box sat a pair of 
 Lancashire lasses, peeling apples at lightning speed, j-et 
 not so fast but they could laugh and chat the while, 
 their bright eyes wandering perpetually through the 
 open serving hatches which ran along one side of the 
 room, to the restaurant stretching beyond, with its rows
 
 352 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 of well-filled tables and its passing waitresses in their 
 white caps and aprons. 
 
 Dora slipped in among them in her soft deprecating 
 way, smiling at this one and that till she came to the 
 stout cook. There she stopped and asked something. 
 Lucy, standing at the door, saw the huge woman draw 
 a corner of her apron across her eyes. 
 
 ' What did you want, Dora ? ' she inquired as her 
 cousin rejoined her. 
 
 ' It's her poor boy. He's in the Infirmary and 
 very bad. I'm sure they think he's dying. I wanted 
 to send her there this morning and do her work, but 
 she wouldn't go. There's no more news — but we 
 mustn't be long.' 
 
 She walked on, evidently thinking with a tender 
 absorption of the mother and son, while Lucy was 
 conscious of her usual impatience with all this endless 
 concern for unknown people, which stood so much in 
 the way of Dora's giving her full mind to her cousin's 
 affairs. 
 
 Yet, as she knew well, Sarah, the stout cook, had 
 been the chief prop of the Parlour ever since it opened. 
 No other servant had stayed long with Daddy. He 
 was too fantastic and exacting a master. She had 
 stayed — for Dora's sake — and, from bearing with him, 
 had learnt to manage him. When she came she brought 
 with her a sickly, overgrown lad, the only son of her 
 widowhood, to act as kitchen-boy. He did his poor 
 best for a while, his mother in truth getting through
 
 YOUTH 353 
 
 most of his work as well as her own, while Dora, who 
 had the weakness for doctoring inherent in all good 
 women, stuffed him with cod-liver oil and ' strengthen- 
 ing mixtures.' Then symptoms of acute hip-disease 
 showed themselves, and the lad was admitted to the big 
 Infirmary in Piccadilly. There he had lain for some 
 six or eight weeks now, toiling no more, fretting no 
 more, living on his mother's and Dora's visits, and 
 quietly loosening one life-tendril after another. During 
 all this time Dora had thought of him, prayed for him, 
 taught him — the wasted, piteous creature. 
 
 When they arrived at Half Street, they let them- 
 selves in by the side-door, and Lucy hurried her cousin 
 into the parlour that there might be no meeting with 
 her father, with whom she was on decidedly uncomfort- 
 able tei-ms. 
 
 The table in the parlour was strewn with patterns 
 from several London shops. To send for them, examine 
 them, and imagine what they would look like when 
 made up was now Lucy's chief occupation. To which 
 might be added a little strumming on the piano, a little 
 visiting — not much, for she hated most of her father's 
 friends, and was at present too closely taken up with 
 self-pity and speculations as to what David Grieve might 
 be doing to make new ones — and a great deal of order- 
 ing about of ^lary Ann. 
 
 Dora sat down, and Lucy pounced on one pattern 
 after another, folding them between her fingers and 
 
 VOL. I. A A
 
 354 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 explaining eagerly how this or that would look if it 
 were cut so, or trimmed so. 
 
 ^Oh, Dora, look — this pink gingham with white 
 spots! Don't you think it's a love? And, you know, 
 pink always suits me, except when ifs a blue-pink. 
 But you don't call that a blue-pink, do you ? And 
 yet it isn't salmon, certainly — ifs something between. 
 It owjlit to suit me, but I declare ' and sud- 
 denly, to Dora's dismay, the child flung down the 
 patterns she held with a passionate vehemence — ' I 
 declare nothing seems to suit me now ! Dora ! ' — in a 
 tone of despair — ' Bora ! don't you think I'm going off? 
 My complexion's all dull, and — and — why I might be 
 thirty ! ' and running over to the glass, draped in green 
 cut-paper, which adorned the mantelpiece, Lucy stood 
 before it examining herself in an agony. And, indeed, 
 there was a change. A touch of some withering blight 
 seemed to have swept across the whole dainty face, and 
 taken the dewy freshness from the eyes. There was 
 fever in it — the fever of fret and mutiny and of a starved 
 self-love. 
 
 Dora looked at her cousin with less patience than 
 usual — perhaps because of the inevitable contrast 
 between Lucy's posings and the true heartaches of the 
 world. 
 
 ' Lucy, what nonsense ! You're just a bit worried, 
 and you make such a lot of it. Why can't you be 
 patient ? ' 
 
 ' Because I can't ! ' said Lucy, sombrely, dropping
 
 YOUTH 355 
 
 into a chair, and letting her arm fall over the back. 
 '• It's all very well, Dora. You aren't in love with a 
 man whom you never see, and whom your father has 
 a spite on ! And you won't do anything to help me 
 — you won't move a finger. And, of course^ you 
 might ! ' 
 
 ' What could I do, Lucy ? ' cried Dora, exasperated. 
 ' I can't go and ask young Grieve to marry you. I do 
 wish you'd try and put hira out of your head, that I do. 
 You're too young, and he's got his business to think 
 about. And while Uncle Tom's like this, I can't be 
 always putting myself forward to help you meet him. 
 It would be just the way to make him think something 
 bad — to make him suspect ' 
 
 ' Well, and why shouldn't he suspect ? ' said Lucy, 
 obstinately, her little mouth set and hard ; ' it's all 
 rubbish about girls leaving it all to the men. If a 
 girl doesn't show she cares about a man, how's he to 
 know — and when she don't meet him — and when her 
 father keeps her shut up — shameful ! ' 
 
 She flung the word out through her small, shut 
 teeth, the brows meeting over her flashing eyes. 
 
 ' Oh ! it's shameful, is it — eh, Miss Purcell ? ' said 
 a harsh, mimicking voice coming from the dark 
 passage leading into the shop. 
 
 Lucy sprang up in terror. There on the steps 
 stood her father, bigger, blacker, more formidable than 
 he had ever been in the eyes of the two startled girls. 
 All unknown to them, the two doors which parted them 
 
 ▲ A 2
 
 356 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 from the shop had been slightly ajar, and Purcell, 
 catching their voices as they came in, and already 
 on the watch for his daughter, had maintained a 
 treacherous quiet behind them. Now he was entirely 
 in his element. He surveyed them both with a dark, 
 contemptuous triumph. What fools women were to be 
 
 sure 
 
 As he descended the two steps into the parlour the 
 floor shook under his heavy tread. Dora had instinc- 
 tively thrown her arm round Lucy, who had begun 
 to cry hysterically. She herself was very pale, but after 
 the first start she looked her uncle in the face. 
 
 ' Is it you that's been teaching Lucy these heoAitiful 
 sentiments?' said Purcell, with ironical emphasis, 
 stopping a yard from them and pointing at Dora, 
 ' and do you get 'em from St. Damian's ? ' 
 
 Dora threw up her head, and flushed. ' I get 
 nothing from St. Damian's that I'm ashamed of,' she 
 said in a proud voice, ' and I've done nothing with 
 Lucy that I'm ashamed of.' 
 
 ' No, I suppose not,' said Purcell dryly ; ' the devil 
 don't deal much in shame. It's a losing article.' 
 
 Then he looked at Lucy, and his expression 
 suddenly changed. The flame beneath leapt to sight. 
 He caught her arm, dragged her out of Dora's hold, 
 and shook her as one might shake a kitten. 
 
 ' AYlio were you talking of just now ? ' he said to 
 her, holding her by both shoulders, his eyes blazing 
 down upon her.
 
 YOUTH 357 
 
 Lucy was much too frightened to speak. She stood 
 staring back at him, her breast heaving violently. 
 
 Dora came forward in indignation. 
 
 ' You'll get nothing out of her if you treat her like 
 that,' she said, with spirit, ' nor out of me either.' 
 
 Purcell recovered himself with difficulty. He let 
 Lucy go, and walking up to the mantelpiece stood 
 there, leaning his arm upon it, and looking at the girls 
 from under his hand. 
 
 ' What do I want to get out of you ? ' he said, with 
 scorn. 'As if I didn't know already everything that's 
 in your silly minds ! I guessed already, and now that 
 you have been so obliging as to let your secrets out 
 under my very nose — I hioji'l That chit there' — he 
 pointed to Lucy — all his gestures had a certain theatrical 
 force and exaggeration, springing, perhaps, from his 
 habit of lay preaching — ' imagines she's going to marry 
 the young infidel I gave the sack to a while ago. Now 
 don't she ? Are you going to say no to that ? ' 
 
 His loud challenge pushed Dora to extremities, and 
 it was all left to her. Lucy was sobbing on the sofa. 
 
 ' I don't know what she imagines,' said Dora, 
 slowly, seeking in vain for words ; the whole situation 
 was so ridiculous. ' Are you going to prevent her falling 
 in love with the man she chooses ? ' 
 
 ' Certainly ! ' said Purcell, with mocking emphasis. 
 ' Certainly — since she chooses wrong. The only con- 
 cern of the godly in these matters is to see that their 
 children are not yoked with unbelievers. Whenever
 
 3S8 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 I see that young reprobate in the street now, I smell 
 i\ie int. And it'll not be long before the Lord tumbles 
 him into it; there's an end comes to such devil's fry 
 as that. Oh, they may prosper and thrive, they may 
 revile the children of the Lord, they may lift up the 
 hoof against the poor Christian, but the time comes — 
 the time comes.' 
 
 His solemnity, at once unctuous and full of vicious 
 meaning, only irritated Dora. But Lucy raised herself 
 from the sofa, and looked suddenly round at her father. 
 Her eyes were streaming, her hair in disorder, but there 
 was a suspicion and intelligence in her look which 
 seemed to give her back self-control. She watched 
 eagerl}^ for what her father might say or do next. 
 
 As soon as he saw her sitting up he walked over to 
 her and took her again by the shoulder. 
 
 ' Now look here,' he said to her, holding her tight, 
 ' let's finish with this. That young man's the Lord's 
 enemy — he's my enemy — and I'll teach him a lesson 
 before I've done. But that's neither here nor there. 
 You understand this. If you ever walk out of this 
 door with him, you'll not walk back into it, with him or 
 without him. I'd have done with you, and my money 'Id 
 have done with you. But there ' — and Purcell gave a 
 little scornful laugh, and let her go with a push — 
 ' lie don't care twopence about you — I'll say that for 
 him.' 
 
 Lucy flushed fiercely, and getting up began me- 
 chanically to smooth her hair before the glass, with
 
 YOUTH 359 
 
 wild tremulous movements, will and defiance settling on 
 her lip, as she looked at herself and at the reflection of 
 her father. 
 
 ' And as for you. Miss Lomax,' said Purcell de- 
 liberately, standing opposite Dora, ' youve been 
 aiding and abetting somehow — I don't care how. I 
 don't complain. There was nothing better to be ex- 
 pected of a girl with your parentage and bringing up, 
 and a Puseyite into the bargain. But I warn you you'll 
 go meddling here once too often before you've done. If 
 you'll take my advice you'll let other people's business 
 alone, and mind ijoiir own. Them that have got Adrian 
 Lomax on their hands needn't go poaching on their 
 neighbours for something to do.' 
 
 He spoke with a slow, vindictive emphasis, and Dora 
 shrank and quivered as though he had struck her. Then 
 by a great effort — the effort of one who had not gone 
 through a close and tender training of the soul for 
 nothing — she put from her both her anger and her 
 fear. 
 
 ' You're cruel to father,' she said, her voice flutter- 
 ing ; ' you might be thinking sometimes how straight 
 he's kept since he took the Parlour. And I don't 
 believe young Grieve means any harm to you or any- 
 body — and I'm sure I don't.' 
 
 A sob rose in her throat. Anybody less crassly 
 armoured in self-love than Purcell must have been 
 touched. As for him, he turned on his heel. 
 
 ^ I'll protect myself, thank you,' he said dryly ; ' and
 
 36o THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 I'll judge for mj^self. You can do as you like, and 
 Lucy too, so long as she takes the consequences. Do 
 you understand, Lucy ? ' 
 
 ' Yes,' said Lucy, facing round upon him, all 
 tremulous passion and rebellion, but she could not meet 
 his fixed, tyrannical eye. Her own wavered and sank. 
 Purcell enjoyed the spectacle of her for a second or two, 
 smiled, and went. 
 
 As soon as he was gone, Lucy dragged her cousin 
 to the stairs, and never let her go till Dora was safe in 
 her room and the door bolted. 
 
 Dora implored to be released. How could she 
 stay in her uncle's house after such a scene ? and she 
 must get home quickly anyway, as Lucy knew. 
 
 Lucy took no notice at all of what she was saying. 
 
 ' Look here,' she said, breaking into the middle 
 of Dora's appeal, and speaking in an excited whisper 
 ■ — ' he's going to do him a mischief I'm certain he is. 
 That's how he looks when he's going to pay some one 
 out. Now, what's he going to do ? I'll know somehow 
 — trust me ! ' 
 
 She was sitting on the edge of the bed, her arms 
 behind her, supporting her, her little feet beating each 
 other restlessly — a hot, vindictive anger speaking from 
 every feature, every movement. The pretty chit of 
 seventeen seemed to have disappeared. Here was every 
 promise of a wilful and obstinate woman, with more 
 of her father's stuff in her than anyone could have 
 yet surmised.
 
 YOUTH 361 
 
 A pang rose in Dora. She rose impulsively, and 
 throwing herself down by Lucy, drew the ruffled, pal- 
 pitating creature into her arms. 
 
 ' Oh, Lucy, isn't it only because you're angry and 
 vexed, and because you want to fight Uncle Purcell ? 
 Oh, don't go on just for that ! When we're — we're 
 Christians, we mustn't want our ow^n way — we must 
 give it up — we must give it up.^ Her voice sank in a 
 burst of tears, and she drooped her head on Lucy's, 
 kissing her cousin's brown hair. 
 
 Lucy extricated herself with a movement of im- 
 patience. 
 
 * When one loves anybody,' she said, sitting veiy 
 upright and twisting her fingers together, ' one must 
 stick to him ! ' 
 
 Dora started at the word ' love.' It seemed to her a 
 profanation. She dried her eyes, and got up to go 
 without another word. 
 
 'Well, Dora,' said Lucy, frowning, 'and so you'll 
 do nothing for me — nothing ? ' 
 
 Dora stood a moment in a troubled silence. Then 
 she turned, and took gentle hold of her cousin. 
 
 ' If I get a chance, Lucy, I'll try and find out whether 
 he's thinking of marrying at all. And if he isn't — 
 and I'm sure he isn't — will you give it all up, and try 
 and live comfortable with Uncle Purcell, and think of 
 something else ? ' 
 
 Her eyes had a tender, nay a passionate entreaty in 
 them.
 
 362 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 ' No ! ' said Lucy with energy ; ' but I'll very likely 
 drown myself in tlie river some fine night.' 
 
 Dora still held her, standing above her, and looking 
 down at her, trying hard to read her true mind. 
 Lucy bore it defiantly for a minute ; then suddenly two 
 large tears rose. A quiver passed over Dora's face ; 
 she kissed her cousin quickly, and went towards the 
 door. 
 
 ' And I'll find out what father's going to do, or my 
 name isn't what it is ! ' said the girl behind her, in a 
 shrill, shaking voice, as she closed the door. 
 
 Dora ran back to Market Place, filled with a pre- 
 sentiment that she was late, though the hand of the 
 Cathedral clock was still far from three. 
 
 At the side door stood a woman with a shawl over 
 her head, looking distractedly up the street. 
 
 ' Oh, Miss Dora ! Miss Dora ! they've sent. He's 
 gooin — gooin quick. An' he keeps wearyin' for " mither 
 an' Miss Dora." ' 
 
 The powerful scarred face had the tremulous help- 
 lessness of grief. Dora took her by the arm. 
 
 ' Let us run, Sarah — at once. Oh, never mind the 
 work ! ' 
 
 The two women hurried through the crowded Satur- 
 day streets. But halfway up Market Street Sarah 
 stopped short, looking round her in an agony. 
 
 ' Theer's his feyther, Miss Dora. Oh, he wor a bad 
 'un to me, but he had alius a soft spot for t' lad. I'd
 
 YOUTH 363 
 
 be reet glad to send worrud. He wor theer in the 
 ward, they tell't me, last week.' 
 
 Three years before she had separated from her hus- 
 band, a sawyer, by mutual consent. He was younger 
 than she, and he had been grossly unfaithful to her ; 
 she came of a good country stock and her dales woman's 
 self-respect could put up with him no longer. But she 
 had once been passionately in love with him, and, as 
 she said, he had been on the whole kind to the boy. 
 
 ' Where is he ? ' said Dora. 
 
 ^At Mr. Whitelaw's yard, Edgell Street, Great 
 Ancoats.' 
 
 They had just entered the broad Infirmary Square. 
 Dora, looking round her in perplexity, suddenly saw 
 coming towards them the tall figure of David Grieve. 
 The leap of the heart of which she was conscious 
 through all her preoccupation startled her. But she 
 went up to him without a moment's hesitation. David, 
 swinging along as though Manchester belonged to him, 
 found himself arrested and, looking down, saw Dora's 
 pale and agitated face. 
 
 ^ Mr. Grieve, will you help me ? ' 
 
 She drew him to the side and explained as quickly 
 as she could. Sarah stood by, and threw in directions. 
 
 ' He'll be to be found at Mr. Whitelaw's yard — Edgell 
 Street — an' whoever goos mun just say to him, " Sarah 
 says to tha — Wilt tha coom, or wilt tha not coom ? — 
 t' lad's deein." ' 
 
 She threw out the words with a sombre simplicity
 
 364 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 and force, then, her whole frame quivering with im- 
 patience, she crossed the road to the Infirmary without 
 waiting for Dora. 
 
 ' Can you send some one ? ' said Dora. 
 
 ' I will go myself at once. I'll find the man if he's 
 there, and bring him. You leave it to me.' 
 
 He turned without more ado, broke into a run, and 
 disappeared round the corner of Oldham Street. 
 
 Dora crossed to the Infirmary, her mind strangely 
 divided for a moment between the solemn image of 
 what was coming, and the vibrating memory of some- 
 thing just past. 
 
 But, once in the great ward, pity and death possessed 
 her wholly. He knew them, the poor lad — made, as it 
 seemed, two tremulous movements, — once, when his 
 mother's uncontrollable crying passed into his failing 
 ear — once when Dora's kiss was laid upon his hollow 
 temple. Then again he lay unconscious, drawing 
 gently to the end. 
 
 Dora knelt beside him praying, his mother on the 
 other side, and the time passed. Then there were 
 sounds about the bed, and looking up, Dora saw two 
 figures approaching. In front was a middle-aged man, 
 with a stupid, drink-stained face. He came awkwardly 
 and unsteadily up to the bedside, almost stumbling 
 over his wife, and laying his hand on the back of a 
 chair to support himself. He brought with him an 
 overpowering smell of beer, and Dora thought as she 
 looked at him that he had only a very vague idea of
 
 YOUTH 365 
 
 what was going on. His wife took no notice of him 
 whatever. 
 
 Behind at some little distance, his hat in his hand, 
 stood David Grieve. Why did he stay ? Dora could 
 not get him out of her mind. Even in her praying 
 she still saw the dark, handsome head and lithe figure 
 thrown out against the whiteness of the hospital walls. 
 
 There was a slight movement in the bed, and the 
 nurse, standing beside the boy, looked up and made a 
 quick sign to the mother. What she and Dora saw 
 was only a gesture as of one settling for sleep. With- 
 out struggle and without fear, the little lad who had 
 never lived enough to know the cost of dying, went the 
 way of all flesh. 
 
 ' They die so easily, this sort,' said the nurse to 
 Dora, as she tenderly closed the patient eyes ; ' it's like 
 a plant that's never rooted.' 
 
 A few minutes later Dora was blindly descending 
 the long stairs. The mother was still beside her dead, 
 making arrangements for the burial. The father, 
 sobered and conscious, had already slouched away. 
 But at the foot of the stairs Dora, looking round, saw 
 that David was just behind her. 
 
 He came out with her. 
 
 ' He was drunk when I found him,' he explained, 
 ' he had been drinking in the dinner hour. I had him 
 by the arm all the way, and thought I had best bring
 
 366 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 him straight in. And then — I had never seen anyone 
 die,' he said simply, a curious light in his black eyes. 
 
 Dora, still choked with tears, could not speak. 
 With shaking hands she searched for a bit of veil she 
 had with her to hide her eyes and cheeks. But she 
 could not find it. 
 
 ' Don't go down Market Street,' he said, after a shy 
 look at her. ' Come this way, there isn't such a crowd.' 
 
 And turning down Mosley Street, all the way he 
 guided her through some side streets where there were 
 fewer people to stare. Such forethought, such gentle- 
 ness in him were quite new to her. She gradually 
 recovered herself, feeling all the while this young 
 sympathetic presence at her side — dreading lest it 
 should desert her. 
 
 He meanwhile was still under the tremor and awe 
 of the new experience. So this was dying ! He 
 remembered 'Lias holding Margaret's hand. ' Deein 's 
 long — btd it's varra, rarra i')eiiceful.^ Not always, 
 surely! There must be vigorous, tenacious souls that 
 went out with tempests and agonies ; and he was con- 
 scious of a pang of fear, feeling himself so young and 
 strong. 
 
 Presently he led her into St. Ann's Square, and 
 then they shook hands. He hurried off to his business, 
 and she remained standing a moment on the pavement 
 outside the church which makes one side of the square. 
 An impulse seized her — she turned and went into the 
 church instead of going home.
 
 YOUTH 367 
 
 There, in one of the old oak pews where the little 
 tarnished plates still set forth the names of their 
 eighteenth-century owners, she fell on her knees and 
 wrestled with herself and God. 
 
 She was very simple, very ignorant, but religion, as 
 religion can, had dignified and refined all the elements 
 of character. She said to herself in an agony — that he 
 must love her — that she had loved him in truth all 
 along. And then a great remorse came upon her — the 
 spiritual glory she had just passed through closed round 
 her again. What ! she could see the heaven opened — 
 the Good Shepherd stoop to take His own — and then 
 come away to feel nothing but this selfish, passionate 
 craving ? Oh, she was ashamed, she loathed herself ! 
 
 Lucy ! — Lucy had no claim ! should have no claim ! 
 He did not care for her. 
 
 Then again the pale dead face would flash upon her 
 with its submissive look, — so much gratitude for so little, 
 and such a tender ease in dying! And she , possessed 
 by all these bad and jealous feelings, these angry desires, 
 fresh from such a presence ! 
 
 ' Oh ! Lamb of God — Lamh of God — that taliest away 
 the sins of the world ! '
 
 368 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 And David, meanwhile, was thinking of nothing in the 
 world but the fortunes of a little shop, about twelve 
 feet square, and of the stall outside that shop. The 
 situation — for a hero — is certainly one of the flattest 
 conceivable. Nevertheless it has to be faced. 
 
 If, however, one were to say that he had marked 
 none of Lucy Purcell's advances, that would be to deny 
 him eyes as well as susceptibilities. He had, indeed, 
 said to himself in a lordly way that Lucy Purcell was 
 a regular little flirt, and was beginning those ways 
 early. But a certain rough young modesty, joined 
 with a sense of humour at his own expense, prevented 
 him from making any more of it, and he was no sooner 
 in his own den watching for customers than Lucy 
 vanished from his mind altogether. He thought much 
 more of Purcell himself, with much vengeful chuckling 
 and speculation. 
 
 As for Dora, he had certainly begun to regard her 
 as a friend. She had sense and experience, in spite of 
 her Ritualism, whereas Lucy in his eyes had neither. 
 So that to run into the Parlour, after each new day 
 was over, and discuss with Paddy and her the ups and
 
 YOUTH 369 
 
 downs, the fresh chances and prospects of his infant 
 business, was pleasant enough. Daddy and he met on 
 the common ground of wishing to make the world 
 uncomfortable for Purcell ; while Dora supplied the 
 admiring uncritical wonder, in which, like a warm 
 environment, an eager temperament expands, and feels 
 itself under the stimulus more inventive and more 
 capable than before. 
 
 But marrying ! The lad's careless good-humoured 
 laugh under Ancrum's probings was evidence enough 
 of how the land lay. Probably at the bottom of him, 
 if he had examined, there lay the instinctive assump- 
 tion that Dora was one of the girls who are not likely 
 to marry. Men want them for sisters, daughters, 
 friends — and then go and fall in love with some minx 
 that has a way with her. 
 
 Besides, who could be bothered with ' gells,' when 
 there was a stall to be set out and a career to be made ? 
 With that stall, indeed, David was truly in love. 
 How he fingered and meddled with it ! — setting out the 
 cheap reprints it contained so as to show their fronti- 
 spieces, and strewing among them, in an artful disorder 
 a few rare local pamphlets, on which he kept a careful 
 watch, either from the door or from inside. Behind 
 these, again, within the glass, was a precious shelf, con- 
 taining in the middle of it about a dozen volumes of a 
 kind dear to a collector's eye — thin volumes in shabby 
 boards, then just beginning to be sought after — the 
 first editions of nineteenth-century poets. For months 
 VOL. I. ^^
 
 370 THE HISTORY OF DAVW GRIEVE 
 
 past David had been hoarding \x\) a few in a corner of 
 his little lodging, and on his opening day they decoyed 
 him in at least five inquiring souls, all of whom stayed 
 to talk a bit. There was a ' Queen Mab,' and a 
 ' Lyrical Ballads ; ' an ' Endymion ; ' a few Landors 
 thrown in, and a 'Bride of Abydos' — this last not of 
 much account, for its author had the indiscretion, from 
 the collector's point of view, to be famous from the be-- 
 ginning, and so to flood the world with large editions. 
 
 Eound and about these dainty morsels were built in 
 with solid rubbish, with Daddy's 'Journals of Theo- 
 logy,' ' British Controversialist,' and the rest. In one 
 top corner lurked a few battered and cut-down Elzevirs, 
 of no value save to the sentiment of the window, while 
 a good many spaces were filled up with some new and 
 attractive editions of standard books just out of copy- 
 right, contributed, these last, by the enterprising 
 traveller of a popular firm, from whom David had them 
 on commission. 
 
 Inside, the shop was of the roughest : a plank or 
 two on a couple of trestles served for a counter, and 
 two deal shelves, put up by David, ran along the wall 
 behind. The counter held a few French scientific 
 books, very fresh, and ' in the movement,* the result of 
 certain inquiries put by old Barbier to a school friend 
 of his, now professor at the Sorbonne — meant to catch 
 the ' college people ; ' while on the other side lay some 
 local histories of neighbouring towns and districts, 
 a sort of commodity always in demand in a great
 
 YOUTH 371 
 
 expanding city, wliere new men have risen rapidly 
 and families are in the making. For these local books 
 the lad had developed an astonishing ficdr. He had 
 the geographical and also the social instincts which 
 the pursuit of them demands. 
 
 On his first day David netted in all a profit of 
 seventeen shillings and twopence, and at night he curled 
 himself up on a mattress in the little back kitchen, 
 with an old rug for covering and a bit of fire, and 
 slept the sleep of liberty. 
 
 In a few days more several of the old-established 
 book-buyers of the town, a more numerous body, per- 
 haps, in Manchester than in other northern centres, 
 had found him out ; a certain portly and wealthy 
 lady, connected with one of the old calico-printing 
 families, a person of character, who made a hobby 
 of Lancashire Nonconformity, had walked into the 
 shop, and given the boyish owner of it much good 
 advice and a few orders ; the Earl of Driffield had 
 looked in, and, caught by the lures of the stall, cus- 
 tomers had come from the most unlikely quarters, 
 desiring the most heterogeneous wares. The hand- 
 some, intelligent young fellow, with his out-of-the- 
 way strains of knowledge, with his frank self-conceit 
 and his equally frank ignorance, caught the fancy of 
 those who stayed to talk with him. A certain number 
 of persons had been already taken with him in Purcell's 
 shop, and were now vastly amused by the lad's daring 
 and the ambitious range of his first stock. 
 
 U 15 2
 
 372 THE HISTORY OP DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 As for Lord Driffield, on the first occasion when he 
 had dropped in he had sat for an hour at least, talk- 
 ing and smoking cigarettes across David's primitive 
 counter. 
 
 This remarkable person, of whom Lucy thought so 
 little, was well known, and had been well known, for a 
 good many years, to the booksellers of Manchester and 
 Liverpool. As soon as the autumn shooting season began, 
 Purcell, for instance, remembered Lord Drifiield, and 
 began to put certain books aside for him. He possessed 
 one of the famous libraries of England, and he not 
 only owned but read. Scholars all over Europe took toll 
 both of his books and his brains. He lived to collect 
 and to be consulted. There was almost nothing he did 
 not know, except how to make a book for himself. 
 He was so learned that he had, so to speak, worked 
 through to an extreme modesty. His friends, however, 
 found nothing in life so misleading as Lord Driffield's 
 diffidence. 
 
 At the same time Providence had laid upon him a 
 vast family estate, and an aristocratic wife, married in 
 his extreme youth to please his father. Lady Driffield 
 had the ideas of her caste, and when they came to 
 their great house near Stalybridge, in the autumn, she 
 insisted on a succession of proper guests, who would 
 shoot the grouse in a proper manner, and amuse her 
 in the evenings. For, as she had no children, life 
 was often monotonous, and when she was bored she 
 had a stately way of making herself disagreeable to
 
 YOUTH 373 
 
 Lord Driffield. He therefore did his best to content 
 her. He received her guests, dined with them in the 
 evenings, and despatched them to tlie moors in the 
 morning. But between those two functions he was 
 his own master ; and on the sloppy November after- 
 noons he might as often as not be seen trailing 
 about Manchester or Liverpool, carrying his slouching 
 shoulders and fair spectacled face into every bookseller's 
 shop, good, bad, and indiifferent, or giving lectures, 
 mostly of a geographical kind, at popular institu- 
 tions — an occupation in which he was not particularly 
 effective. 
 
 Da\dd had served him, once or twice, in Half Street, 
 and had sent a special notice of his start and his in- 
 tentions to Benet's Park, the Driffields' ' place.' Lord 
 Driffield's first visit left him quivering with excitement, 
 for the earl had a way of behaving as though eveiybody 
 else were not only his social, but his intellectual equal — 
 even a lad of twenty, with his business to learn. He 
 would sit pleasantly smoking and asking questions — a 
 benevolent, shabby person, eager to be informed. Then, 
 when David had fallen into the trap, and was holding 
 forth — proud, it might be, of certain bits of know- 
 ledge which no one else in Manchester possessed — Lord 
 Driffield would throw in a gentle comment, and then 
 another and another, till the trickle became a stream, 
 and the young man would fall blankly listening, his 
 mouth opening wider and wider. When it was over, 
 and the earl, with his draggled umbrella, had dis-
 
 374 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 appeared, David sat, crouched on his wooden stool, con- 
 sumed with hot ambition and wonder. How could a 
 man know so much — and an earl, who didn't want it ? 
 For a few hours, at any rate, his self-conceit was 
 dasbed. He realised dimly what it might be to know 
 as the scholar knows. And that night, when he had 
 shut the shutters, he vowed to himself, as he gathered 
 his books about him, that five hours was enough sleep 
 for a strong man; that learn he must and should, and 
 that some day or other he would hold his own, even 
 with Lord Driffield. 
 
 How he loved his evenings — the paraffin lamp 
 glaring beside him, the crackling of the coal in his 
 own fire, the book on his kuee ! Ancrum had kept his 
 promise, and was helping him with his Greek ; but 
 his teaching hardly kept pace with the boy's enthusiasm 
 and capacity. The Toracitii with which he worked at 
 his Thucydides and Homer left the lame minister 
 staring and sighing. The sound of the lines, the roll 
 of the oi's and ozt's was in David's ear all day, and to 
 learn a dozen irregular verbs in the interval between 
 two customers was like the gulping of a dainty. 
 
 Meanwhile, as he collected his English poets he 
 read them. And here was a whole new world. For 
 in his occupation with the Encyclopaedists he had cared 
 little for poetry. The reaction against his Methodist 
 fit had lasted long, had developed a certain contempt for 
 sentiment, a certain love for all sharp, dry, calculable 
 things, and for the tone of irony in particular. But in
 
 YOUTH 375 
 
 sucli a nature such a phase was sure to pass, and it 
 was passing. Burns, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Tennyson 
 — now he was making acquaintance piecemeal with 
 them all, as the precious volumes turned up, which 
 he was soon able to place with a precision which 
 tore them too soon out of his hands. The Voltairean 
 temper in him was melting, was passing into some- 
 thing warmer, subtler, and more restless. 
 
 But he was not conscious of it. He was as secular, 
 as cocksure, as irritating as ever, when Ancrum probed 
 him on the subject of the Hall of Science or the 
 various Secularist publications which he supported. 
 
 ' Do you call youi-self an atheist now, David ? ' said 
 Ancrum one day, in that cheerful, half-ironic tone 
 which the young bookseller resented. 
 
 ' I don't call myself anything,' said David, stoutly. 
 ' I'm all for this world ; we can't know anything about 
 another. At least, that's my opinion, sir — no offence 
 to you.' 
 
 ' Oh, dear me, no offence ! There have been a fe^tj 
 philosophers, you know, Davy, since Voltaire. There's 
 a person called Kant; I don't know anything about 
 him, but they tell me he made out a very pretty case, 
 on the practical side anyway, for a God and immortality. 
 And in England, too, there have been two or three 
 persons of consequence, you remember, like Coleridge 
 and John Henry Newman, who have thought it worth 
 while to believe a little. But you don't care about 
 that ? '
 
 376 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 The lad stood silent a moment, liis colour rising, his 
 tine lip curling. Then he burst out : 
 
 'What's the good of thinking about things by the 
 wrong end ? There's such a lot to read ! ' 
 
 And with a great stretch of all his young frame he 
 fell back on the catalogue he was looking through, while 
 Ancrum went on turning over a copy of ' The Reasoner,' 
 a vigorous Secularist paper of the day, which he had found 
 on the counter, and which had suggested his question. 
 
 Knoidedge — success : it w^as for these that David 
 burned, and he laid rapid hands upon them. He had a 
 splendid physique, and at this moment of his youth he 
 strained it to the utmost. He grudged the time for 
 sleep and meals, and on Saturday afternoons, the early- 
 closing day of Manchester, he would go out to country 
 sales, or lay plans for seeing the few considerable 
 libraries^-Lord Driffield's among them — which the 
 neighbouring districts possessed. On Sunday he read 
 from morning till night, and once or twice his assistant 
 John, hammering outside for admittance in the winter 
 dark, wakened the master of the shop from the rickety 
 chair where he had fallen asleep over his books in the 
 small hours of the morning. 
 
 His assistant ! It may well be asked what a youth 
 of twenty, setting up on thirty pounds capital in a 
 small shop, wanted with an assistant before he had any 
 business to speak of. The story is a curious one. 
 
 Some time in the previous summer Daddy had 
 opened a smoking and debating room at the Parlour,
 
 YOUTH 377 
 
 by way of keeping his clientele together and giving a 
 special character to the place. He had merely boarded 
 off a bit of the original seed warehouse, put in some 
 rough tables and chairs, and a few newspapers. But 
 by a conjunction of circumstances the place had taken 
 a Secularist character, and the weekly debates which 
 Daddy inaugurated were, for a time at least, well 
 attended. Secularism, like all other forms of mental 
 energy, had lately been active in Manchester; there 
 had been public discussions between Mr. Holyoake 
 and Mr. Bradlaugh as to whether Secularism were 
 necessarily atheistic or no. Some of the old newspapers 
 of the movement, dating from Chartist days, had 
 recently taken a new lease of life ; and combined with the 
 protest against theology was a good deal of co-operative 
 and republican enthusiasm. Lomax, who had been a 
 Secularist and an Owenite for twenty years, and who 
 was a republican to boot, threw himself into the 
 melee, and the Parlour debates during the whole of the 
 autumn and winter of '69-70 were full of life, and 
 brought out a good many young speakers, David 
 Grieve among them. Indeed, David was for a time the 
 leader of the place, so ready was his gift, so confident 
 and effective his personality. 
 
 On one occasion in October he was holding forth on 
 ' Science — the true ]^rovidence of Life.' The place 
 was crowded. A well-known Independent had been 
 got hold of to answer the young Voltairean, and David 
 was already excited, for his audience was plying liim
 
 37S THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 with interruptions, and taxing to the utmost a natural 
 debating power. 
 
 In the midst of it a printer's devil from the 
 restaurant outside, a stout, stupid-looking lad, found his 
 way in, and stood at the door listening. The fine classical 
 head of the speaker, the beautiful voice, the gestures so 
 free and flowing, the fire and fervour of the whole 
 performance — these things left him gaping. 
 
 ' Who's that ? ' he ventured to inquire of a man near 
 him, a calico salesman, well known in the Salford Con- 
 servative Association, who had come to support the 
 Independent speaker. 
 
 The man laughed. 
 
 ' That's young Grieve, assistant to old Purcell, Halt 
 
 Street. He talks a d d lot of stuff — blasphemous 
 
 stuff, too ; but if somebody 'd take and teach him and 
 send him into Parliament, some day he'd make em 
 skip, I warrant yo. I never heard onybody frame 
 better for public speaking, and I've heard a lot.' 
 
 The printer's devil stayed and stared through the 
 debate. Then, afterwards, he began to haunt the paths 
 of this young Satan, crept up to him in the news-room, 
 skulked about him in the restaurant. At last David 
 took notice of him, and they made friends. 
 
 ' Have you got anybody belonging to you ? ' he 
 asked him, shortly. 
 
 'No,' said the boy. 'Father died last spring; 
 mother was took with pleurisy in November '
 
 YOUTH 379 
 
 But tlie words stuck in his throat, and he coughed 
 over them. 
 
 ' All right,' said David ; ' come for a walk Sunday 
 afternoon ? ' 
 
 So a pretty constant companionship sprang up 
 between them. John Dalby came of a decent stock, 
 and was still, as it were, under the painful and stupefy- 
 ing surprise of those bereavements which had left him 
 an orphan. His blue eyes looked bewilderment at the 
 world ; he was bullied by the compositors he worked 
 under. Sometimes he had violent fits of animal spirits, 
 but in general he was dull and silent, and no one 
 could have guessed that he often read poetry and cried 
 himself to sleep in the garret where he lodged. Physi- 
 cally he was a great, overgrown creature, not, in truth, 
 much younger than David. But while David was 
 already the man, John was altogether in the tadpole- 
 stage — a being of large, ungainly frame, at war with 
 his own hands and feet, his small eyes lost in his pink, 
 spreading cheeks, his speech sh}' and scanty. Yet, 
 such as he was, David found a use for him. Tempera- 
 ments of the fermenting, expansive sort want a listener 
 at the moment of early maturity, and almost any two- 
 legged thing with the listener's gift will do. David 
 worked off much steam on the Saturday or Sunday 
 afternoons, when the two would push out into the 
 country, walking some twenty miles or so for the sheer 
 joy of movement. Wliile the one talked and declaimed, 
 ploughing his violent way through the soil of his
 
 38o THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 young thought, the other, fat and silent, puffed along- 
 side, and each in his own way was happy. 
 
 Just about the time David was dismissed by Purcell, 
 John's apprenticeship came to an end. When he heard 
 of the renting of the shop in Potter Street, he promptly 
 demanded to come as assistant. 
 
 ' Don't be a fool ! ' said David, turning u^Don him ; 
 ' what should I want with an assistant in that bit of a 
 place ? And I couldn't pay you, besides, man.' 
 
 ' Don't mind that,' said John, stoutly. ' I'd like to 
 learn the trade. Perhaps you'll set up a printing busi- 
 ness by-and-by. Lots of booksellers do. Then I'll be 
 handy.' 
 
 ' And how the deuce are you going to live ? ' cried 
 David, somewhat exasperated by these unpractical pro- 
 posals. ' You're not exactly a grasshopper ; ' and his 
 eye, half angry, half laughing, ran over John's plump 
 person. 
 
 To which John replied, undisturbed, that he had 
 got four pounds still of the little hoard his mother had 
 left him, and, judging by what David had told him of 
 his first months in Manchester, he could make that last 
 for living a good while. When he had learnt some- 
 thing of the business with David, he would move on — 
 trust him. 
 
 Whereupon David told him flatly that lie wasn't 
 going to help him waste his money, and sent him about 
 his business. 
 
 On the very day, however, that David opened, he was
 
 YOUTH 381 
 
 busy in the shop, when he saw John outside at the 
 stall, groaning under a bundle. 
 
 ' It's Mr. Lorn ax ha sent you this,' said the lad, 
 calmly, ' and I'm to put it up, and tell him how your 
 stock looks.' 
 
 The bundle contained Daddy's contributions to 
 young Grieve's window, which at the moment were 
 very welcome ; and David in his gratitude instructed 
 the messenger to take back a cordial message. The 
 only notice John took was to lift up two deal shelves 
 that were leaning against the wall of the shop, and to 
 ask where they were to go. 
 
 And, say what David would, he stuck, and would 
 not be got rid of. With the Lancashire accent he had 
 also the Lancashire persistence, and David after a while 
 gave in, consented that he should stay for some weeks, 
 at any rate, and then set to work to teach him, in a 
 very impatient and intermittent way. For watching and 
 bargaining at the stall, at any rate, for fetching and 
 carrying, and for all that appertains to the carrying 
 and packing of parcels, John presently developed a sur- 
 prising energy. David's wits were thereby freed for 
 the higher matters of his trade, while John was beast 
 of burden. The young master could work up his 
 catalogues, study his famous collections, make his own 
 bibliographical notes, or run off here and there by 'bus 
 or train in quest of books for a customer ; he could 
 swallow down his Greek verbs or puzzle out his French
 
 382 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 for Barbier in the intervals of business; the humbler 
 matters of the shop prospered none the less. 
 
 Meanwhile both lads were vegetarians and teeto- 
 talers ; both lived as near as might be on sixpence a 
 day ; and an increasing portion of the Manchester world 
 — of that world, at any rate, which buys books — began, 
 as the weeks rolled on, to take interest in the pair and 
 their ventm-e. 
 
 Christmas came, and David made up his accounts. 
 He had turned over the whole of his capital in six 
 weeks, had lived and paid his rent, and was very 
 nearly ten pounds to the good. On the evening when 
 he made this out he sat jubilantly over the fire, think- 
 ing of Louie. Certainly it would be soon time for him 
 to send for Louie at this rate. Yet there were fros 
 and cons. He would have to look after her when she 
 did come, and there would be an end of his first free- 
 dom. And what would she find to do ? Silk-weaving 
 had been decaying year by year in Manchester, and for 
 hand-loom weaving, at any rate, there was no opening 
 at all. 
 
 No matter ! With his prosperity there came a 
 quickening of the sense of kinship, which would not 
 let him rest. For the first time for many years he 
 thought often of his father. Who and what had his 
 mother been ? Why had Uncle Reuben never spoken 
 of his parents, save that one tormented word in the 
 dark ? Why, his father could not have been thirty 
 when he died ! Some day he would make L^ncle
 
 YOUTH 383 
 
 Reuben tell all the story — he would know, too, where 
 his father was buried. 
 
 And meanwhile, in a few more weeks, he would 
 write to Kinder. He would be good to Louie — he 
 decidedly meant that she should have a good time. 
 Perhaps she had grown out of her tricks by now. Tom 
 said she was thought to be uncommon handsome. 
 David made a little face as he remembered that. She 
 would be all the more difficult to manage. 
 
 Yet all the time David Grieve's prosperity was the 
 most insecure growth imaginable. 
 
 One evening Lucy rushed in late to see Dora. 
 
 ' Oh, Dora ! Dora ! Put down your work at once 
 and listen to me.' 
 
 Dora looked up in amazement, to see Lucy's little 
 face all crimson with excitement and resolution. 
 
 ' Dora, I've found it all out : he's going to buy the 
 house over Mr. Grieve's head, and turn him into the 
 street, just as he's got nicely settled. Oh ! he's done 
 it before, I can tell you. There was a man higher 
 up Half Street he served just the same. He's got 
 the money, and he's got the spite. Well now, Dora, it's 
 no good staring. Has Mr. Grieve been up here lately?' 
 
 ' No ; not lately,' said Dora, with an involuntary sigh. 
 ' Father's been to see him. He says he's that busy he 
 can't come out. But, Lucy, how do you know all this ? ' 
 
 Whereupon, at first, Lucy wouldn't tell ; but being 
 at bottom intensely proud of lier own cleverness at last
 
 384 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 confessed. She had been for long convinced that her 
 father meant mischief to young Grieve, and had been 
 on the watch. A little listening at doors here, and a 
 little prying into papers there, had presently given her 
 the clue. In a private drawer, unlocked by chance, 
 she had found a solicitor's letter containing the full 
 description of No. 15 Potter Street, and of some 
 other old houses in the same street, soon to be sold 
 and rebuilt. The description contained notes of price 
 and date in her father's hand. That very evening the 
 solicitor in question had come to see her father. She 
 had been sent upstairs, but had managed to listen all 
 the same. The purchase — whatever it was — was to be 
 concluded ' shortly.' There had been much legal talk, 
 and her father had seemed in a particularly good temper 
 when Mr. Vance went away. 
 
 ' Well now, look here,' said Lucy, frowning and 
 biting her lips ; ' I shall just go right on and see him. 
 I thought I might have found him here. But thefe's 
 no time to lose.' 
 
 Dora had bent over her frame again, and her face 
 was hidden. 
 
 ' Why, it's quite late,' she said, slowly ; ' the shop 
 will be shut up long ago.' 
 
 ' I don't care — I don't care a bit,' cried Lucy. ' One 
 can't think about what's proper. I'm just going straight 
 away.' 
 
 And she got up feverishly, and put on her hat
 
 YOUTH 385 
 
 ' Why can't yon tell father and send him ? He's 
 downstairs in the reading-room,' said Dora. 
 
 ' I'll go myself, Dora, thank you,' said Lucy, with 
 an obstinate toss of her head, as she stood before the 
 old mirror over the mantelpiece. ' I dare say you think 
 I'm a very bold girl. It don't matter.' 
 
 Then for a minute she became absorbed in putting 
 one side of her hair straight. Dora, from behind, sat 
 looking at her, needle in hand. The gaslight fell on 
 her pale, disturbed face, showed for an instant a sort 
 of convulsion pass across it which Lucy did not see. 
 Then she drew her hand along her eyes, with a low, 
 quivering breath, and went back to her work. 
 
 As Lucy opened the door, however, a movement of 
 anxiety, of conscience, rose in Dora. 
 
 ' Lucy, shall I go with you ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, no,' said Lucy, impatiently. ' I know what's 
 what, thank you, Dora. I'll take care of myself. 
 Perhaps I'll come back and tell you what he says.' 
 
 And she closed the door behind her. Dora did not 
 move from her work ; but her hand trembled so that 
 she made several false stitches and had to undo them. 
 
 Meanwhile Lucy sped along across ^farket Street 
 and through St. Ann's Square. Her blood was up, and 
 she could have done anything, braved anybody, to defeat 
 her father and win a smile from David Grieve. Yet, as 
 she entered Potter Street, she began to quake a little. 
 The street was narrow and dark. On one side the 
 older houses had been long ago pulled down and re- 
 voL. r. c c
 
 386 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 placed by tall warehouses, which at night were a black 
 and towering mass, without a light anywhere. The few 
 shops opposite closed early, for in the office quarter of 
 Manchester there is very little doing after office hours, 
 when the tide of life ebbs outwards. 
 
 Lucy looked for No. 15, her heart beating fast. 
 There was a light in the first floor, but the shop-front 
 was altogether dark. She crossed the street, and, 
 lifting a shaking hand, rang the bell of the very narrow 
 side door. 
 
 Instantly there were sounds inside — a step — and 
 David stood on the threshold. 
 
 He stared in amazement at his unwonted visitor. 
 
 ' Oh, Mr. Grieve — please — I've got something to tell 
 you. Oh, no, I won't come in — we can stand here, 
 please, out of the wind. But father's going to buy this 
 place over your head, and I thought I'd better come 
 and tell you. He'll be pretty mad if he thinks I've let 
 out ; but I don't care.' 
 
 She was leaning against the wall-of the passage, 
 and David could just see the defiance and agitation on 
 her face by the light of the gas-lamp outside. 
 
 He himself gave a low whistle. 
 
 ' Well, that's rather strong, isn't it. Miss Purcell ? ' 
 
 ' It's mean — it's abominable,' she cried. ' I vowed 
 I'd stop it. But I don't know what he'll do to me — 
 kill me, most likely.' 
 
 ' Nobody shall do anything to you,' said David, 
 decidedly. ' You're a brick. But look here — can you 
 tell me any thing~more ? '
 
 YOUTH 387 
 
 She comtnandecl herself with great difficulty, and 
 told all she knew. David leant against the wall beside 
 her, twisting a meditative lip. The situation was 
 ominous, certainly. He had always known that his 
 tenure was precarious, but from various indications he 
 had supposed that it would be some years yet before 
 his side of the street was much meddled with. That 
 old fox! He must go and see Mr. Ancrum. 
 
 A passion of hate and energy rose within him. 
 Somehow or other he would pull through. 
 
 When Lucy had finished the tale of her eavesdrop- 
 pings, the young fellow shook himself and stood erect. 
 
 ' Well, I am obliged to you, Miss Purcell, And 
 now I'll just go straight off and talk to somebody that 
 I think '11 help me. But I'll see you to Market Street 
 first.' 
 
 ' Oh ! — somebody will see us ! ' she cried in a fever, 
 ' and tell father.' 
 
 ' Not they ; I'll keep a look out.' 
 
 Then suddenly, as they walked along together, a 
 great shyness fell upon them both. Why had she done 
 this thing, and run the risk of her father's wrath ? As 
 David walked beside her, he felt for an instant, through 
 all his gratitude, as though some one had thrown a lasso 
 round him, and the cord were tightening. He could 
 not have explained the feeling, but it made him curt 
 and restive, absorbed, apparently, in his own thoughts. 
 Meanwhile Lucy's heart swelled and swelled. She did 
 think he would have taken her news differently — have 
 made more of it and her. She wished she had never
 
 388 THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE 
 
 come — she wished she had brought Dora, The familiar 
 consciousness of failure, of insignificance, returned, and 
 the hot tears rose in her eyes. 
 
 At Market Street she stopped him hurriedly. 
 
 ' Don't come any farther. I can get home.' 
 
 David, meanwhile, was saying to himself that he 
 was a churlish brute ; but for the life of him he could 
 not get out any pretty speeches worthy of the occasion. 
 
 ' I'm sure I take it most kind of you. Miss Purcell. 
 There's nothing could have saved me if you hadn't told. 
 And I don't know whether I can get out of it now. 
 But if ever I can do anything for you, you know ' 
 
 ' Oh, never mind ! — never mind ! ' she said, inco- 
 herently, stabbed by his constraint. ' Good night.' 
 
 And she ran away into the darkness, choked by the 
 sorest tears she had ever shed. 
 
 David, meanwhile, went on his way to Ancrum, 
 scourging himself. If ever there was an ungrateful 
 cur, it was he ! Why could he find nothing nice to 
 say to that girl in return for all her pluck ? Of course 
 she would get into trouble. Coming to see him at that 
 time of night, too ! Why, it was splendid ! 
 
 Yet, all the same, he knew perfectly well that if she 
 had been there beside him again, he would have been 
 just as tongue-tied as before. 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME 
 
 Spottiswoode d.- Co. Printers, Neic-street Square, London. 
 
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