CHAPTER IX
ELSIE'S VISITOR
It was a night or two after our first and (for the time being) lastvisit to Deep Moat Grange. Elsie and I had arrived back at Nance's,our hands and even our arms laden with flowers. For Nance had been athome all day, and so Elsie and I had been taking a holiday--I fromlessons, and Elsie from looking after the house. We had gone wanderingover the long whinny knowes which stretch away to the south, till, fromthe top of Brom Beacon, one can see the ships crowding into the docksof East Dene and Thorsby, collier and tug and tall sea-going brig,every ship after her kind.
It was a day to be remembered, and as a matter of fact neither of ushas forgotten it. We crossed Brom Water where it was as broad as alake. Our conveyance was a penny flatboat, running on a chain, whichchain hauled itself up wet and dripping from the bed of the river. Alittle farther on we stretched ourselves out on the greensward upon agreen knoll above a railway cutting. We talked. We were silent, andlistened to the the wind among the leaves and the hum of insects amongthe lime trees and meadow plants. Mr. Mustard was not at all in ourthoughts. Nor yet my father in mine. Only one thing troubled me--theknowledge that in the autumn I must leave Breckonside and go tocollege. College itself I did not mind about. There was a certainamount of fun in being a student--or so I had always been told. What Ireally did mind about was leaving Elsie.
It would be--I knew it by instinct--like cutting off a part of my ownbody to go walking lonely on Saturdays when we had so often loitered incompany, thinking that the good days would never cease, wanting nothingbetter, nothing other than just what we had. Ah! I had a previsionthat day that Elsie and I had better make the most of our time duringthis summer. For the winter would try our friendship.
What I did not foresee was how suddenly Elsie would grow up. Yet shehad always done things suddenly--from boxing my ears to deciding tocontinue her studies at home. She did the latter that very day, and inthe evening she announced to Nance that she was not going back toschool.
"Very well," said Nance, not in the least surprised. Indeed, with herown limited education, she had often wondered why Elsie had prolongedhers so unnecessarily.
It was pleasant in Nance's cottage by the Bridge End of Breckonside.The house was, as perhaps I have already explained, overwhelmed in aperfect show of creeping flowers, not all of them yet in their fullbloom of colour, but always spreading up to the chimneys and throwingabroad reckless tendrils that brushed the face as one entered thelittle wooden porch.
Nance was busy with the supper dishes, and Elsie had come down after"giving her hair a tidy," as she had been commanded by Nance to do.
"Who do you think has been here the day?" said Nance suddenly.
And I knew in a minute, but Elsie guessed her grandfather.
"The young English minister from Over Breckonton."
"Yes," Nance went on to give details, finding that nobody exclaimed ather news; "as fine an Englisher as ever was, with a bit cambrichandkerchief that wad hae been little use to a man wi' a cauld in hisheid, and a black cane wi' real silver bands. Extraordinary civil hewas, and bode near an hour talkin' to puir auld Nance, and speirin'where ye were, Elsie, and what time ye wad be hame!"
I looked at Elsie. She was busily engaged in tying up some sprays ofearly heath, which we had gathered on the steep sides of Brom Beacon.She did not seem to be listening. But she heard well enough, as herwords proved.
"Oh, yes, Mr. Ralph Ablethorpe! Joe and I met him by chance on the wayto my grandfather's the other day."
Now the vixen knew very well that there would be no more question ofthe "coming of the Englishy minister" after an announcement like that.Nance was all agog to hear of the wonders of Deep Moat Grange, whichshe had never seen except from the outside, and news of the mad peoplemy lassie's granddad had gathered about him. Small wonder, either!For, indeed, no one had crossed the Moat for years except theHigh-Church curate, who (as they said) went periodically to "confess"Miss Orrin.
Even such things as coals and provisions were brought by the bailiff tothe end of the drawbridge in sacks, and from thence carried across onthe back of the powerful Jeremy, the same Jeremy whom we had seen thatday weeping like a child.
But it was then that I began first to understand what absence atcollege might cost me. I looked at Elsie. She was still tying up thelittle pink bundles of "bell heather," but her face was held down, andthere was a little conscious flush upon her cheek. I had never thoughtit before, and it came on me like a judgment. Elsie was pretty.
I did not exactly wish she hadn't been, but oh, I did wish that nobodyhad been able to see it but myself!
That English curate, with his curly poll and clear blue eyes, rode melike a nightmare. I resolved to break his head, handsome as itlooked--aye, if he were the best man that ever stepped in shoe leather,and had climbed all the mountains in Switzerland and given all that hegot for doing it to the poor, as they said he had done. I did not carehow good he was. I was desperate at the thought of losing Elsie. Notfor love--oh no, thank you. I had more sense than that. But just togo about with, and be my little 'panion, as she had always said shewould be, and as I expected her to remain.
But the curate did not let grass grow under his footsteps. It was onlytwo days before he was back again at the little cottage at the BridgeEnd. Nance had work that day, and if I had not had the sense to playtruant he would have found Elsie by herself, as no doubt he expected todo. But I was there seated on the table, swinging my legs.
He began at once saying how sorry he was that Nance was out, and thathe had so much enjoyed the talk with her the other day. But under mybreath I kept saying, "Liar! Liar!" Because I knew quite well that hewas coming of purpose to see Elsie, and the thought gave me catchingsof the breath when I thought of going to college. I wasn't jealous abit, of course, only I couldn't bear to think of any other fellow beingfriends with Elsie.
But after awhile I began to like the parson better. He had heard thatI could bowl more than a bit, and he asked me to make one of the teamhe was getting up to play the second eleven of East Dene. I took tohim more after that, and really he did not talk to Elsie oftener thanhe did to me. More than that, he did not make me feel in the way.
But it was all no go. From deep down in my heart there kept bobbing upthe feeling that somehow I was to lose Elsie, and that this youngparson with the curly head would be the cause of it. Of course, I wasgoing on to eighteen, and a big fellow for my age, with a moustache youcould see by looking for it. But this was a full-grown man oftwenty-four at the least--for all that his shaven face and sort ofpainted-window hair made him look any age from that of a choir boy tothat of a holy angel.
He asked about Elsie's grandfather, saying that he had struggled longand vainly to get him to come to church, or at least to communion, butwithout success. More than that, he seemed to be keeping Miss Orrinfrom attending the parish church of Over Breckonton. Miss Orrin, so itseemed, had good instincts--she was well affected toward religion, butsomething always seemed to hold her back. At a certain point shebecame silent, and he, Ralph Ablethorpe, could do nothing more withher. This resistance he hoped, however, to overcome one day. It washis duty to study the welfare of every soul in his parish, and also ofthose wandering and foldless sheep who were cared for by nobody.
I had it on my tongue tip to say that there were many who cared forsouls when they were connected with comely bodies, for that was thekind of thing that my father was always saying. He took himself for anadvanced thinker whenever he quarrelled with our vicar, but betweentimes he was as good a conservative as anybody, and stood up for lawand order like the chucker-out of a bar-room.
Elsie had not much to say about her people. She never had. But I toldhim, as I always did any one who asked, that her father had been anarmy officer, and her mother the only daughter of the Golden Farmer,only that neither the one nor the other of them could stand the oldman's ways.
Then the young parson, as I found to be hi
s custom, started in todefend the absent, which is all right when the "absent" is anywaydecent.
"Yes," he said, "Mr. Stennis's habits are certainly eccentric. Icannot deny that. But after all he does a lot of good in rathercreditable circumstances. He gives shelter to four poor lunatics whoma sisterly love has preserved from the living death of a common asylum."
I told him plainly that I thought it would be much better forthemselves, and infinitely so for the countryside, if they were allshut up in the nearest asylum under proper care.
"What do you mean?" says he, rather startled. For I could see by thechanging of his countenance that he, too, had seen strange things. As,indeed, he was bound to do, if he kept his eyes open at all, going toDeep Moat Grange as often as he did.
But then, you see, he was a simple sort of young man, and neverthought, or at least said, any evil of anybody.
Then he suggested that we would walk home together, and though I hadmeant to stay at the cottage all day, I actually went. But I soon gothim into a hot argument with my father (who could argue the handle offthe village pump) about doctrine and sacraments, and things that a boyhas to learn about in school till he hates the very name of them. Atleast, if he has a master like old Mr. Mustard. Then I up and shinnedout of the back door as quick as I could, lest father should ask mewhere I was going, and send me kiting all over the country with one ofour delivery vans. I found Elsie looking out of the window and verypensive.
So I told her to her face that she was thinking of that curly-headedcurate, and she answered me (as, of course, she would naturally do)that whether she was or wasn't, it was no business of mine.
Then I vowed I would make it my business.
"Then make it!" says she, and turned away very haughty and went andsulked in Nancy's little room, which was off the big kitchen. It wasas much as I could do to keep from turning on my heel and walking away,never more to return. But I knew that it was wrong to yield topassion. So I was noble and stopped where I was.
Instead I began to sweep up the cinders about the grate and geteverything ready for tea, even to scouring the teapot and things. Iused coarse, common powder, and this I moistened by a coarse andfamiliar method. The act brought Elsie out promptly. Just boundingshe was. Mad was no name for it. She called me all the names shecould think of, but she didn't sulk any more. I thought she wouldn't.That always fetches her. She knows I do it a-purpose to make herangry, but she can't help it--not one time in a thousand. Elsie isbuilt that way, and from what I have seen quite a lot of women are.
It works far better than taffying up to them, or doing the dreadfulhumble. Get them spitting mad, and they will love you ever after, orat least for quite a while.
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