For of course, though Mary did not realise it, the facts of his birth had gradually penetrated Jonathan’s consciousness: old Ackroyd was very frank about the matter, his mother wore no wedding ring, at Sunday school the other children called ugly names after him, and Martha sometimes forgot to be discreet in her reminiscences. Out of shame and pity Jonathan kept up the pretence of ignorance, but he knew it all, he knew it only too well, he knew that he was not only poor but nameless, that he was regarded by the world as the lowest of the low.
Thus every circumstance of his life and nature drove Jonathan to religion as a consolation and a strength, and when—the Luddite trouble being over the horizon, old Ackroyd dying and unable to offer opposition, and Jonathan being regarded by most people as a child Mary Bamforth had conceived in some low haunt in York—Martha thought it safe to take him to chapel with her and send him to the Sunday school, Jonathan was at once in his element. The fierce enthusiasm of the chapel made an immense appeal to his own fierce noble heart. His God was, of course, the God of the widow and the fatherless, the God who defended the poor and laid the mighty (that is to say, the Oldroyds) low. When he sang the psalms in the little Scape Scar chapel, with the wind moaning across the moors without, his whole being quivered with ecstasy; that was right, he felt, that was true; there must be, there was a God who judged the earth, who made naught of the rich and cared for the miseries of the poor. At the school held in the afternoon he learned swiftly, he had the Bamforth passion for knowledge and the Oldroyd will to gain what he wanted; he attracted the minister’s notice by his forwardness and received special tuition, and presently won a Bible as a prize. Out of this he read long poetical passages to his mother in a voice which trembled with feeling; his mother thought that surely in the whole world nobody could read was well as he; and certainly his voice had strength and purity and fire. He tried to teach Mary to read, but this was not a success, so he taught her to say texts by heart instead. With immense toil and care and secrecy he printed out large—on an old piece of paper he had begged from the minister and cleaned with breadcrumb and neatly trimmed—the text: He that endureth to the end shall be saved; and he minded other children’s machines in the dinner break to earn a penny or two for ribbon for it, and gave it to his mother to hang up on their attic wall above her bed. Mary—who adored the text as her dearest possession, every day pored over it, straightened it with loving fingers, and dusted it as though it were glass—was supposed to know each separate word of the writing, but she was apt to blunder; and Jonathan was not always perhaps quite as patient as he might have been over her mistakes. At such times Mary gave him a peculiarly fond and loving look and accepted his rebukes with an almost ecstatic meekness, for she saw his father in him—Will had always been impatient over other folk’s blunders.
Indeed as Jonathan grew older, and she marked the increasing strength, determination and initiative of his character, and knew them an Oldroyd inheritance, Mary’s very bones were penetrated with admiring love. Surely if Will could but once see her Jonathan he would act kindly by the boy! And perhaps this thought was not absent from Mary’s decision to take him to Syke Mill and ask for a place there for him. She concealed from Jonathan that it was to the Oldroyds’ they were going, partly in case Will repulsed her, and partly from a mere intuitive feeling that it would be well to do so, though she was far from suspecting the truth, namely that for her thus as it were to betray him into his father’s hands was the most cruel blow for Jonathan which she could well have devised. He was hopelessly perplexed, ashamed, angry with her and fiercely jealous—why should she want to have anything to do with that wicked man? Had she not a son to care for her? As they toiled up the hill homewards he would not speak to her, but gloomed apart, his handsome face sullen, the Oldroyd frown on his brow. That night, for the first time in years, mother and son lay down to rest without a good-night kiss. Nor did Jonathan soon forget his anger; when Martha and Mary plied him with questions designed to reveal the superior advantages of working at Syke Mill he answered shortly, much vexed because his regard for truth compelled him to admit that Syke Mill was definitely superior to Wood’s. Not that he felt any better for working there, on the contrary he felt worse and worse; to-day his head ached, indeed he ached all over, he could hardly drag himself to the mill; his mouth was parched, with a disgusting taste in it, he could eat no food, the Ire seemed to him to smell, everything was horrible. The day seemed endless, by evening he could hardly stand or see. And then Mr. Oldroyd knocked down the slubber, and set him free. Jonathan regarded this as a contemptible piece of hypocrisy on Will’s part, a kind of currying favour with a boy he had wronged; for how could any manufacturer not know that beating the pieceners with a billy-rod to keep them awake, w as a common feature of the evening’s work? Still he was glad of it, glad to be out in the fresh air talking to the wild heathenish Brigg, who in Jonathan’s opinion knew simply nothing but was very lovable. Jonathan would have liked to lie down on the grass and close his sore eyes, rest his aching head; but with characteristic conscientiousness he held himself firmly erect, heard Brigg his spellings, and tried to give a little religious instruction to the child, who in his opinion sorely needed it. He embarked on Bible stories, and told the attentive Brigg the tale of Joseph, which as a record of virtue at first oppressed but later magnificently triumphant, made a special appeal to him.
“How much did his brothers sell him for?” demanded Brigg with interest at the close.
“Twenty pieces of silver,” replied Jonathan impressively.
Brigg considered this. “They ought to have got more for him,” he remarked at length with a knowing shake of the head.
Jonathan was profoundly shocked by this commercial view, and said so, but Brigg, rolling over on the grass, gave the elder boy a merry look, and laughed heartily.
4
Next morning the slubbing overlooker spoke to Will about replacing the man whom Will had struck down.
“He’s not minded to eat humble-pie and come back, then?” said Will.
The overlooker shook his head. “He’s talking of going into Lancashire,” he said.
“Good riddance,” said Will.
The overlooker, who, like Jonathan, knew that the discharged man was not the only one in Syke Mill to beat his pieceners before evening, and thought Will must know it too, expressed no opinion on this point, but asked for the man’s wages so that he might pay him off. Will counted out the money; and said briefly that he supposed one of the younger men or lads could be moved up into the empty place. But the overlooker had some objection to each one he proposed; it was obvious that he had some man from outside the mill in his mind. At length Will asked him impatiently whom he wanted. The overlooker hesitated, and then said there was a young fellow from Wood’s down by the Ire Bridge who would be glad of the job.
“I reckon they haven’t had much to do at Wood’s lately,” said Will, “if all I hear is true.”
“Aye! He alius has been a bit late for t’fair, like, has Wood,” agreed the overlooker. “He was late wi’ frames, and late wi’ steam. Then he started carding and slubbing because other folk were doing well out of it. And now I reckon he’s too late filing his petition—they say he won’t pay five shillings in the pound. He’s shutting down next week. So this lad’s free. But I reckon you won’t want him,” he concluded doubtfully. “He’s a good slubber all t’same.”
“Then why shouldn’t I want him?” asked Will sharply. “Who is he?”
“He’s a relation o’ mine in a manner o’ speaking. His name’s Thorpe,” said the onlooker. He added quickly: “He’s that one’s brother. But he was only a little lad at the time.”
“He can’t have much spirit, or he wouldn’t want to come here,” said Will distastefully.
“Starvation’s a hard mester, and them Thorpes have done a deal o’ clemming,” said the overlooker with feeling. “There was one on ’em died, think on.”
A few weeks ago Will would have rejected the idea of h
aving a Thorpe to work for him with scorn, for while he had forgotten Mary and the details of the affair his animosity against his father’s murderers remained; but on Mary’s account he was now in the mood to exonerate all the Luddites except the ringleader Mellor, and he therefore said in a kindly tone: “Well, if he wants to come, he can come, and let bygones be bygones.”
The overlooker seemed pleased. “Oh, and while I think on,” he said as they were parting: “That Mrs. Bamforth came down this morning, to say her boy’s taken bad and can’t come to work to-day.”
Will gave a sharp sigh. So Mary had been to Syke Mill and he had not seen her. Well, it was best, he supposed, but the prospect of a life in which he never saw Mary was very uninviting. And even the excitement of Jonathan’s presence would be lacking for the next few days. Now that Mary was removed from want—Will had left the agreed sum at the Red Lion that morning—no doubt she would indugle the boy a little. His head perhaps was sore from the slubber’s blow. Will awoke from these considerations to find the overlooker eyeing him curiously. “Well, get another child in,” he commanded in a dreary tone. He decided that when Jonathan returned to work he should keep him running about, doing errands and the like, so that he should gradually learn all the cloth trade, and not remain a mere slubber all his life.
Passing through the mill next day, Will saw that young Thorpe was at work, and that Jonathan had not yet returned. Will eyed Thorpe sharply; mindful of what the overlooker had said, he decided that the young man was a bleached and starved and spiritless edition of his executed brother. He was short and slightly bow-legged, and had a clear high colour in his cheeks, all of which reminded Will of Tom; but his hair was ashen and his eyes timid, and he blushed and stuttered painfully when Will spoke to him. Thorpe soon won the favour of his fellow slubbers, Will noticed, by the rather peevish but amusing criticisms of life in general and Syke Mill in particular which he twittered irrepressibly in a shrill jesting tone from a mouth pulled sideways—he was in fact a born comedian of the cynical pathetic type; but his jests never passed the bounds of the permissible, and he was such a good workman that Will was rather more than satisfied with him. What dissatisfied Will was Jonathan’s continued absence. Every morning the owner of Syke Mill strolled by the slubbers, and saw with increasing chagrin that Jonathan’s dark head and flashing eyes were still missing. By the end of the week Will began to be really vexed. It was absurd of Mary to keep the boy away like this. But perhaps she had thought he might as well play the week out, and would send him back on the following Monday morning. Acting on this reflection, Will made an opportunity early on Monday to look in on the slubbers; Jonathan was not there. Will coloured with vexation. What was going on up at the Moorcock, in heaven’s name! The thought that for the rest of his life he would never know what was going on up at the Moorcock, and would always want to know, suddenly smote him and roused him to fury; he should not be able to stand that and did not intend to try; he made up his mind to tell Bessy the whole business, and move Mary down into Dean Head House forthwith.
When he went over to New House for his midday meal, however, he was not able to broach the subject to Bessy, for young Brigg had come home from school ailing, and now lay about in the dining-room with a pillow under his head, weeping in a peevish way whenever his mother left him. Bessy invited Will to feel the child’s forehead, which was certainly hot; Will, however, who was always well himself, had difficulty in believing that others were ill, and pooh-poohed the notion of sending for the doctor. At tea-time Brigg was in bed; he called for Bessy constantly all evening, and she was up at intervals through the night with him. When Will left for Annotsfield market next morning the child had at last fallen into an uneasy doze, and Bessy, looking pale and tired, was just laying herself down in the hope of a few minutes’ rest; she besought Will to send out the Annotsfield doctor promptly. Will still thought Brigg had merely eaten something which disagreed with him, but Bessy seemed to take the matter so seriously, positively bursting into tears when Will argued it, that he agreed without further ado. “You can arrange with the doctor about coming for yourself, while he is here,” said Will, for Bessy was only some two months from her time. At this reminder of her condition the disheartened Bessy wept loudly, and Brigg woke up and began to scream, so that Will was glad to get out of the house. He was glad to be going to market this blazing day; it was hot riding along the sunny road to Annotsfield, and abominably hot in the Cloth Hall, but it would have been hotter still in Syke Mill, especially as the Ire was at present so very low. Will left a message for the doctor and then forgot all about his domestic affairs until he came in sight of Syke Mill Lane on the way home that evening, when he saw, instead of the small lively Brigg, who usually came to the top of the lane on Tuesday evening to meet him, the motionless figure of old Henry Brigg, leaning heavily on his stick.
“Well, grandfather,” he called cheerfully—business had been unexpectedly brisk that day—“So you’ve come to meet me, have you? I’m much obliged.”
The old man looked mournfully up at his son-in-law from his rheumy eyes. “Brigg’s very poorly,” he announced.
“Is he?” exclaimed Will. He looked at the old man again, and was struck by his tragic air. “What’s the matter with him?” he demanded soberly, walking his mare to suit old Brigg’s doddering gait.
“The doctor says it’s some sort of a low fever,” muttered Henry Brigg, shaking his head despondently: “Bessy thinks he’s got it from the pieceners.”
Will was just about to say crossly: “But he hasn’t been inside the mill for weeks,” when he exclaimed, and involuntarily pulled up the mare. Good God! Jonathan! He saw it all! Jonathan had caught this whatever-it-was from the other pieceners, and passed it on to Brigg that night he heard his spellings by the Ire. The blow fell on Will with a double force, for he perceived he had two sons suffering. He sat there like a stone. Old Brigg, who had doddered two or three paces further on, turned round to him with a peevish air.
“Bessy’s mad for you to be home,” he said.
Will started and rode on. This too struck him doubly. Bessy was so anxious that she longed for him to be home; that was bad. But what of Mary, whose son was also ailing, but who had no man to come home to her to share her trouble? That was much worse, Will exclaimed wretchedly to himself, and his thoughts flew between New House and the Moorcock like a shuttle. He drew rein in the mill yard, dismounted, went into the house, and forthwith entered upon a nightmare.
It was a nightmare which lasted several weeks, for the typhus fever took a long dreary course. Brigg’s little body grew thin and flabby, then took on a dark unnatural mottled hue; often the child raved. Yet Brigg was a strong, sturdy child, reflected Will, with years of fresh air and good feeding behind him; how would Jonathan’s delicate frame support the fever’s ravages? Early in Brigg’s illness Will took the Annotsfield doctor aside, and, frankly telling him his relationship to Jonathan, bade him look after the child at the Moorcock, for Will would make it worth his while. By this means he presently learned that his eldest son was still alive and that Mary had the fever in a mild form. But then miseries so acute fell upon New House that Will had no time to think of any other place. First Henry Brigg was attacked by the fever. The doctor said that a woman must be got in to nurse him, for Bessy was not fit to do so; indeed, he was always urging precautions upon Bessy, and setting limits to what she might do for little Brigg. Will regarded Henry Brigg’s illness with a certain philosophy; after all he was an old man, his life was over. But when one morning, as he was attending the doctor to the carriage which waited for him at the top of Syke Mill Lane, Will hinted that he supposed his father-in-law would not recover, the man looked at him gravely, and replied that Mr. Brigg was not severely ill. Mr. Brigg did not cause him great anxiety. Will, alarmed by his tone and suspecting a reference to the Moorcock, looked at him interrogatively; the doctor added that he had great hopes of the little boy.
“Then who?” began Will in a panic.
&
nbsp; The one who caused him anxiety, said the doctor, was Mrs. Oldroyd.
Will’s jaw dropped. “What, Bessy?” he exclaimed, astounded. “But she’s not ill.”
Thereupon the doctor solemnly hoped she would not take the fever, for if she did, he said, he would not be answerable for the consequences. “In her condition,” he concluded gravely, and added, fixing a rather stern eye upon Will, “I hope you are ensuring that she observes all proper precautions when nursing young Master Brigg.”
Will, guiltily conscious that he was doing nothing of the kind, did not know whether to be incredulous or alarmed. Setting the man down as a panic-striken fool, he nevertheless went indoors at once to look for Bessy, and found her bending over her son, measuring out some dose or other for him. Will took the spoon and bottle from her hand, and shouted angrily for the nurse, who came running in a flurry from attending on Henry Brigg. Will shepherded Bessy downstairs, put her into a chair and bade her rest and keep away from the invalid. He then went off to the mill. As he crossed the yard the thought flew into his mind that if Bessy caught the fever and died of it he could take Mary to wife. His own lack of elementary human decency in admitting such a thought promptly revolted him—what would Mary think of a man whose mind produced such dark musings? He coloured deeply, swung on his heel and went back to Bessy, whom he found still sitting where he had left her, rocking herself slowly to and fro. Will, speaking irritably because he was still ashamed of himself, charged Bessy in the strictest and sternest manner possible, with all his authority as a husband, not to go near her father or her son. “You must consult your own health,” he said. “Remember your condition.” Bessy said nothing, but looked up at him strangely. It struck Will that she was already sickening with the fever, but he shook off the impression, declined to admit it to his mind. He forced himself to go to her and kiss her, patting her shoulder soothingly. Her cheek was dry and hot. He left her with misgivings. An hour later these had become so strong that they drove him across to the house to see what she was doing. Finding the lower floor empty save for the maid, he went upstairs quietly. Bessy was giving little Brigg a drink, clasping his hot fingers to the glass with her large brown hand. Will perceived that she had been doing this sort of thing throughout little Brigg’s illness, and the doctor had told him that to-touch the skin or inhale the breath of a patient was to court infection. Dismayed, and angry with himself for not having kept a watch on Bessy earlier, he pretended to be angry with her for her disregard of his orders, and expressed himself on the matter with his customary vehemence.
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