Chapter VII: Ruth and Jim

When I returned to my senses, or, as Jim expressed it, "comed back to my know," it was to find myself tucked in bed in my own little room in Pole Moor Manse, snug enough save that the upper part of my left arm seemed big enough for the thigh of an elephant. The knife with which I had been stabbed, by a blow that was probably meant for my heart, had lodged deep in the shoulder, or, as Jim explained to me, the humerus, though, again to quote my friend, "nob'dy but a doctor could see owt humorous about it, but that's what owd Dean ca'd it." The upper arm had swollen to a portentous size, the skin red and inflamed, and the vilely-stinking matter had been drained away by tubes inserted in the wound, I all the while unconscious and babbling about rings and Gretna Green and Burnplatters and bad warps and broken time and Bill's o' Jacks and Belgian hares and I know not what, beside, "enough to make angels weep," Ruth said, "fit to mak' a pig dee o' laughing," Jim declared. It had been deemed necessary to sit up with me, and for the comfort of the watchers the long-settle had been with much difficulty, hoisted to my chamber through the window, the staircase being too narrow to admit of its being brought up that way. As the mists cleared from my mind, which they did slowly, just as I have seen a mist melt away in tiny wisps as the sun gained in power, I became aware of subdued voices by the long, narrow window, under which the long-settle stretched. At first the sound seemed to my ears like the droning of a hive of bees, but as my perception cleared I knew the voices to be those of Ruth and, unless I was greatly mistaken, of the faithful Jim. I was stretched prone on my back, and my left arm was wrapped round and round again with yards of lint and bindings, and burled and throbbed and twitched and stung, and I wondered what ailed it and how I came to be in bed at Pole Moor, with the evening sun shining through the window, and why, in the name of all that was decent and seemly, Ruth and Jim should have invaded the privacy of my own bedroom. I managed, with some pain, to turn my head on the bolster in the direction of the voices, and sure enough there was Jim sat at one end of the long-settle, and though that useful article of furniture was long enough to accommodate half a dozen folk without crowding, there was our Ruth hutched close up to the giant form of my comrade, looking like a dainty yacht beside a man o' war, and, as I'm a sinner, Jim had his left arm about Ruth's shoulders --he'd have had to go on to his knees to clasp her waist--and her little brown hand nestled confidingly in Jim's big fist. I was so taken aback that I merely gasped and lay still resolving however that if it should please the good Lord to lift me off that bed of pain. I'd give Ruth at large my views as to what was fitting for a maiden who was a full and dipped member at Pole Chapel, its minister's daughter, and the sister to boot, of a decent lad who, for aught she knew or seemed to care, might at that very moment when she sat billing and cooing be at death's door; a mere chit of a girl, I communed inwardly with myself, old enough, for sure, old enough to wait on me and be her old fathers nurse, but certainly not old enough to be casting her mind man-wards--though a quick afterthought reminded me she was Miriam's age to a month or two; but then, that was up another street.

"Tell us all about it again, Ruth," I heard Jim say. "Start reight at th' beginning, like th' Meltham singers. I could hearken to thee talkin' fro' th' peep o' day to sundown. Tha's getten a voice like a linnet."

"He should hear Miriam," I thought to myself. "Ruth's voice, indeed!"

"Well, get away to th' other end of th' settle," quoth Ruth. "What do you want scrouging me up in a corner like this?"

"Aw thowt happen you were cowd," says Jim with a grin.

"Well, I'm not, and besides, there's a fire, and whatever would father think if he came upstairs; and there's Abe--who knows but what unconscious folk have got their senses about them unbeknown to us. I wouldn't have Abe know for all I can see. He'd just plague my life out."

"Oh! don't mind me," I said inwardly. "I'll get on wi' mi deein', thee get on wi' thi courtin'."

"Well, it was this way," began Ruth, after Jim had hutched his burly form about an inch towards the other end of the settle, though he still clung to Ruth's hand in a perfectly idiotic manner. Whatever sort of pleasure could he find in the touch of Ruth's soft fingers? If they'd been Miriam's now!

"It was this way. I'd overslept myself that morning, good New Year's Day though it was. You see we'd had the watch-night service in the chapel, and I can't stand these late hours. If I miss my sleep I feel stupid for a week at after. It would, maybe, be seven o'clock, and darkish still, when I was wakened by Tear'em, Abe's old terrier you know, kicking up the most awful racket you ever heard, and there was somebody pounding at the kitchen door I thought sure it was one of th' congregation taken badly and wanting my father. They nearly always contrive to come on that errand when we're warm and snug in bed. Nobody ever seems to be taken worse at a reasonable hour. I'm sure I don't know why, but it is so, and I've heard Dr. Dean say th' same thing. 'Well, let 'em knock,' I thought, 'father's not rested yet after th' watch-night service, an' I'll not let him out of this house for th' King of England till he's had his porridge. He's getting too old for tramping th' moors i' midwinter on an empty stomach.' But th' pounding went on, and Tear 'em got worse and worse. So I slipped out o' bed an' drew my blind up, to let 'em know I was waken. Then I dressed myself, and went down to unbar th' door. When I got it open I saw two men making off down th' road as fast as their legs could carry them; th' snow was falling thick and fast, and they'd their backs to me and their heads bent, so who they were I've no more notion than our cat. Not to swear to, I mean, but if one of them wasn't Daft Billy my name's not Ruth Holmes, and that I'll stick to, to my dying day, though father says I've no right to jump to conclusions. 'Well, that's a nice trick to play on a parson,' I was saying to myself, 'that'll be some Slowit Church Choir that have been letting New Year in, an' done this for spite,' when I heard a groan that made me jump nearly out of my frock. And there was poor Abe, propped up against the house side all covered with white, like a snowman. His head was sunk on his breast, and his coat, was tied round his neck. Somebody had tied a dirty red handkerchief round his arm to stop the bleeding, and Dr. Dean said whoever'd done it knew a thing or two, and that makes me all the surer Daft Billy had his finger in th' pie, for you know how clever he is with a cow. Now, do sit further off, Jim, or I won't say another word."

"Aw don't think th' settle legs at this side are o'er strong," muttered Jim, "an aw think aw mun ha' getten a cowd i' mi yead, for aw dunnot ye'r (hear) so weel at a distance, an' yo' munnot speik up or, maybe, yo'll wakken Abe, an' aw'm certain sure that'd noan be good for his health. Same as fo'k as walk i' their sleep, yo' know: they _do_ say if yo' wakken 'em sudden they go off their yeads, an' stop so all their lives 'at after. Tha'd nivver forgive thissen, Ruth, if yo' had to shout through me bein' a bit deafish an' sittin' three yard off. But ger on wi' thi tale."

"Well, when I saw Abe, I cried 'Murder!' with all my might, and as good luck would have it old Deacon Hoyle was just coming up th' fowd to see if we'd any skim milk to spare for his pig, an' between us we lifted him up off th' ground and carried him into th' house and laid him on this very settle, him moaning all th' time fit to break your heart, and his face as white as th' snow itself, and you know what a colour he has when he's himself. My father came downstairs half dressed and all of a tremble, and then we saw that the bandage round Abe's arm was soaked with blood. We hadn't a drop o' brandy in the house, you know how set my father is against anything stronger than home-brewed, but all of a sudden I bethought me there was half a bottle of port wine left over from th' last love-feast. I poured half a mugful down Abe's throat, and he just gasped and opened his eyes, then groaned worse than ever, and seemed just to swoon away.

"'Enoch Hoyle,' I cried, 'if ever you made haste in your life, which I doubt, stir those long legs of yours now, and pack yourself down to Slowit to Dr. Dean's. Yo'll catch him before he starts his rounds, and tell him our Abe's bleeding himself to death.' Well, that's all, I think. We got him to bed after th' doctor had come and seen to his arm. He says--th' doctor I mean--that Abe's been stabbed, and there's foul play somew'ere."

"And who do you think did it, Ruth?"

"Aye, who? Father thinks it may be one of those Bradburys over at Bill's o' Jack's. But I've reasons of my own for thinking different."

"And aw'll be bun' you're reet, Ruth," asseverated Jim, with great conviction. "I'd back thee agen yo'r own feyther, an' that's a big word to say, an' him such a clever owd felly."

"You mustn't say 'reet,' Jim--how often have I to tell you," said Ruth, severely. "You must say 'right.' I do wish you'd take more pains with your speech, if we're ever to be more than just good friends, and that we'll always be, won't we?"

"Friends be dalled," quoth Jim. "Us 'll be one flesh an' one blood, an' afore so long either, or I'll know the reason why. But aw dunnot know ha' it is, aw can talk reet--aw mean reight--aw mean right--enough when aw ta' my time to it, but as sooin as aw warm to th' collar, so to speik--theer aw go again, aw mean speak--out th' owd Yorkshire comes as brode--aw mean broad--as they mak' it."

Now I couldn't help thinking even as I lay there, with more than enough to perplex me and that of moment, that Ruth was a little hard upon poor Jim; for certain sure am I that she herself aye, and even, my learned and reverend father himself often, in moment of excitement or stress lapsed into the common speech; and the little wonder, too, when the common speech saluted our ears from all sides from Monday morning to Sunday night. As for me, why, I never knew when I was "talking broad," as they say, or "talking fine," for the dialect came to me as natural as mother's milk to a sucking babe, as my first spoken words were to show. For at this very juncture I opened wide my eyes, and turning my head as well as I could to the settle, I said:

"Aw could eit some browies, Ruth, an' drink a pint o' drink."

"The Lord preserve us," almost screamed Ruth, as she jumped away from Jim, "if the lad isn't wakken an' got his know again."

They both came to my bedside and gazed at me as though I were a natural curiosity, or something in a peep-show. Then Jim:

"Weel, lad, I'm mighty fain to hear thee speik a word o' sense agen. Tha's had a slate off, not to say th' whole thack, this mony a weary day an' neet. Aw'n ta'en my turn to sit up wi' thee, an' of all th' gibberish I ivver yeard tha ta'es th' button. But tha's started weel, nah tha has come to thi senses--'browies an' a pint o' drink.' If Ruth here 'll see to th' browies, aw'll fot th' drink."

"You seem to know your way about at Pole Moor," I remarked meaningly.

Jim looked confused. "Weel, nowt to speik on," he said, "but aw do know mi way to th' buttry. Yo' see, sittin' up th' neet through wi' nob'dy to talk to but Tear 'em, an' nowt to read but Fox's 'Book o' Martyrs' an' 'Th' Call to th' Unconverted'--not 'at aw'n a word to say agen them books, mind yo', an' don't you go tellin' yo'r feyther 'at aw an--well, it's dry work, to put it mild, an' if aw hadn't had a drop o' summat to weet mi clay aw should ha' nodded off belike just when it were time to gi' thee thi doctor's stuff. Summat to 'allay th' fever,' owd Dean ca'd it, which my mother says if they'd let thee sup thi fill o' cherry-laurel watter tha'd ha bin up an' about afore this--tha knows what a woman she is for herbs. Oo's med me read owd Culpepper awmost fro' back to back sin' tha's bin ligged here, an' as far as aw can mak' aat from what th' owd herbalist says in his book, an' fro' mi mother's comments on what aw'n read to her, tha's getten abaat sixty different complaints all to thi own cheek. Tha's getten th' symptoms o' all on 'em, an' partickler o' those wi' th' jaw-breakin' names, at aw couldn't reelly put me tongue to. Why, Ruth hersen couldn't chrisen haulf on 'em; could ta, Ruth?" And here Jim paused to take wind for a fresh start.

"Where's my father?" I asked.

"Why, where should he be at nine o'clock of a Sabbath morn?" asked Ruth, proceeding, woman-wise, to answer her own question. "He's in th' barn, to be sure, with th' Sunday School. I don't know what the world's coming to, I'm sure. One would have thought my father had enough to do, with two sermons every Sunday, one on week-days, sick visiting, prayer meetings, conferences, a cow, two pigs, a potato patch, a sick son----"

"An angel o' a dowter," put in Jim.

"And now, to crown all, this new-fangled Sunday School. And there's Enoch Hoyle as proud as Punch because they've set him on to teach th' youngest class their alphabet."

"Why, Enoch can't read himself," I exclaimed feebly.

"No, but he's learning from th' scholars as they go on," explained Ruth, glad, so it seemed to me, to keep chattering on any subject under the sun and not yet fully recovered from the confusion into which she had been thrown by my unexpected return to consciousness "I hearkened to them t'other Sunday, You know we've had the letters of the alphabet cut in large wood letters. 'What do you ca' this chap,' says Enoch to th' top boy in th' class, taking up a letter promiscuous like. 'It's a P,' says th' boy. 'An' what dost ta ca' it?' asks Enoch from the next boy. 'It's a P for sartin',' says th' lad. And so on, right down to the bottom boy. Then Enoch laid down the letter with a profound sigh. 'It's a P,' he pronounced, an' don't yo' forget it as long as yo' live.' And that's how Enoch is both learning to read and teaching his class. He says he'll die happy when he can spell 'Belgian hares.' But there, I'm talking all this time of something and nothing, and what we've all been dying to know these days back is how you came by that nasty wound in your arm. Dr. Dean says it's our duty to society to bring the offenders to book, though father ever quotes to him 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.'

"And what does Dr. Dean say to that?" I asked, more to gain time than from any curiosity as to the worthy surgeon's views.

"Oh, he makes short work of texts. He says they're right enough on Sundays and for Sunday wear, but on week days he opines God Almighty relies on the secular arm, as he calls it."

"Meaning th' bobby," interpreted Jim.

"It seemed to me from what I heard you saying to Jim----" I began.

"You mustn't trust your ears for anything you fancy you heard just as you came to your senses," put in Ruth hurriedly, and blushing red as a peony. "You can never be sure how much was real and how much dreaming."

"To be sure," corroborated Jim, wagging his head sagely.

"Well, I fancied I heard you say you had reasons of your own for thinking it wasn't one of the Bradbury's gave me this jab in my arm."

"Oh! if that's all you heard," said Ruth, evidently much relieved.

"I didn't say it _was_ all I heard," I replied, trying to look at her with much severity, whilst Jim seemed to be studying a crack in the ceiling. "But I _should_ like to know your reasons."

"Well, Miriam, you know," began Ruth.

"Aye, Miriam," I cried, and turned myself in bed so unguardedly that all the pains of hell gat hold upon me, as it says in the Book, or so it seemed to me for an excruciating moment or two. "Aye, Miriam?"

"Sakes alive," cried Ruth, "them browies! Th' fat 'll be boiling over into th' fire. Miriam 'll wait, but good beef dripping on a hot fire 'll wait neither for man nor maid," and Ruth whisked out of the chamber with all her sail on.

I tried to shrug my shoulders as I glanced at Jim, as though by a shrug I would convey to him what sort of treatment he might anticipate for himself in the days to come; but a sharp twinge warned me to lie quiet. There was silence between us, whilst Jim shredded some thin twist, drawing a dirty clay out of his fob and eyeing it longingly.

"I think I'll go and ha' a reek o' baccy in th' kitchen, I can put mi yead up th' flue," he said, sheepishly.

"You can smoke here," I said curtly. "And look here, Jim, tell me what sort of a tale's running the country about this hurt of mine."

"There's all mak's," said Jim. "Aw nivver knew so mich to do i' my life abaat a bit o' a cut 'at ony chap could get if he gate into a scrap wi one o' them Irish haymakers 'at come over i' th' hay-time. Aw'm all for th' bare nieve missen, wi' a bit o' a clog toe thrown in as an extry; but th' Irish 'll use a knife on a pinch. But if yo'd be blown up wi' gunpowther there couldn't ha' bin more doment. For one thing, there's bin at least hauf a dozen special prayer meetin's at th' Pole here, an' on your account, an' th' prayers o' th' congregation ha' been specially requested for our brother Abe 'at lies stricken unto death. Aw suppose there'll be a thanksgiving sarvice nah tha'rt on th' mend. Then th' constable fro' Marsden has bin nosin' raand. He's bin uncommon civil to me, an' stooid a quart or two, but aw'n bin mum. For one reason, yo' see, aw knowed nowt, tho' yo' mun be sewer aw hannot tell'd him so, an noan likely to as long as free quarts is goin'. If owt leaks aat, it'll be Enoch Hoyle's tellin'. He's fair longin' for another Court do. He were so set up wi' hissen ower th' way yo' bested th' Bradbury's o'er Ephraim's job 'at he's just hitchin' for another innin's."

"By the by," I asked, "where is Ephraim?"

"Ax me another," quoth Jim, eyeing me sideways. "He's vanished. Ne'er been heard on sin' New Year's Eve, same neet yo' were set on. Some folk's puttin' this an' that together. But aw'm not for speerin'."

"Well, don't, Jim, there's a good lad. An' shut Enoch's mouth if you can. I've my reasons. Ah, here's Ruth with th' browies, an' I'm mortal hungry, and as dry as a lime kiln."

It was almost worth while being ill to savour those browies and that ale. Never, sure, were nectar and ambrosia sweeter on Olympian lips than that homely mixture of haver-bread and beef-dripping, piping hot, and pepper and salt, washed down with innocent home-brewed. I've lived to see the day when men and women drink tea by the quart when their fathers quaffed their home-brewed; and shattered nerves and dyspeptic stomachs tell what's amiss. Worse still, I've lived to see the day when you can travel the countryside for miles around and hardly a housewife be found that can brew a peck of honest malt. It's malt and chemicals now, dear bought at the public-house; and muddled heads and shaky limbs tell what's amiss.

But so long as my father lived never did drop of alien brew pass the doors of Pole Moor Manse, and as for spirits save a thimbleful of brandy in case of sickness the very name was anathema in my father's ears and while I was spooning my brownies with great gusto and meditating another mighty pull at the pewter jug, my dear old father stole softly up the narrow staircase in his stocking-feet, having doffed his shoon in the kitchen, partly to avoid noise, but more to avoid dirt and Ruth's consequent and instant railing accusations. And when he saw me so valiantly engaged, the little, thin man, with a heart as tender as a woman's and as dauntless as Goliath's, could find no words to speak, but must needs sit by my couch and softly pat my big hand, and bid me not to talk more but sleep if I could. And, knowing well that no petition could please him better, I asked him to read just a verse or two from the Book that was indeed to him the Book of Life, and as he read in his grave, soft voice, all tremulous now, how the Master came nigh to the gate of a certain city and there was one carried out, the only son of his mother and she a widow, and how the Lord had compassion on her and bade her weep not, and how the young man sat up and began to speak, and "he delivered him to his mother," the warm tears trickled softly down the hollow cheeks, and I knew that not in Nain only was "God glorified," and full of thankfulness to heaven for the love of this sainted man, and still weak, doubtless, from loss of blood and confinement to bed, and low diet, and drowsy perchance, from the ale I had drunk, and at natural peace with God and man, I sank into a natural sleep, and so slumbered with my father's hand in mine.

It was not till some days afterwards, I being then much stronger, and my arm having sunk to something like its normal size, and I feeling little after effects from my wound, save a most voracious appetite that Ruth condescended to tell me her reasons for acquitting the Bill's o' Jack's folk of having part or parcel in the attack I had been so rudely treated. It seemed that on the afternoon of the day I had been discovered propped against the Manse, Ruth had sallied forth in a blinding snowstorm to fetch from Dr. Dean's surgery in Slaithwaite the potions and lotions he had prescribed. And not far from Pole Moor, evidently waiting about on the chance of waylaying anyone who left the parson's house, she had come across the shrinking form of Miriam, looking, as Ruth declared, more like a sheeted ghost than a human being, so shrouded was she in the fallen flakes, white her face, so piteous and "feart" her eyes.

"Oh, Ruth, at last, at last; I thought no one would ever come! How is he, how is he? Will he get better? What does the doctor say?" Miriam had cried.

"And how do you know our Abe's badly, I should like to know," Ruth had answered tartly, for one may be sure she was in none the best of tempers, and small blame to her.

"Oh, Ruth, dear, dear Ruth, don't speak unkindly to me. I'm sure I've enough to bear without you turning on me," and here, it seemed, poor Miriam, who was not one of your crying sort, had fairly broken down, and Ruth, all there on the lone road and in the blinding snow, had put her arm round the swaying form, and Miriam had sobbed out her story on Ruth's gentle breast.

"Granny's like to die," she had said, "and couldn't or wouldn't rest till she had seen Abe. She had found the ring Abe had given me, and after that nothing would quieten her but seeing Abe. And Daft Billy had brought Abe long after midnight, and Ephraim was there, and there were angry words and foul looks, and Ephraim went off in ugly mood. Then after a long, long time Abe started out, but whether for Pole Moor or Wrigley Mill I didn't know for sure. And after he had gone I couldn't rest for thinking of Ephraim's black looks. Something here," putting her hand over her fluttering heart, "seemed to tell me that danger menaced Abe. I dare not leave the sick woman, or I would myself have braved the darkness and the storm even in that grim hour. So, unable to still the forebodings that beset me, I stole out of the house to the hovel where Daft Billy dwells by his lone. I roused him with difficulty, and told him my fears. As he valued my friendship I bade him follow Abe's footsteps, if he could trace them in the snow, and see Abe, himself unseen, safe bestowed either at Pole Moor or Wrigley Mill." And Billy, who it seemed was in the habit of sleeping in his clothes, as saving trouble and blankets, had snatched up a lanthorn and made off in the dark, whilst Miriam returned to the sick woman's side, to count the minutes, aye, the seconds, till news should come. Then after a never-ending waiting, after the late dawn of day, Billy had returned to Burnplatts, had thrust open her cottage door, and said just this and no more:

"Th' young fooil's all reet. There's bin a bit o' a accident, but nowt to scare yo'. He's at th' Pole."

And neither coaxing, nor threats, nor cross-examination, nor bribes, nor tears, nor woman's wiles in all their forms and force, could extract another word from Billy, surnamed the Daft, but who, as I think I have said before, was by no means so daft as he was called.

And of Ephraim there had been neither sight nor sound since he had left his granddam's cottage on that eventful New Year's morn.

But it was whispered at Burnplatts--goodness knows how such things do get bruited abroad--that Abe, the old parson's son, was sick unto death, stabbed to the heart on Stanedge Moor. How he had been conveyed to Pole Moor there were a thousand guesses; but I couldn't tell, and Daft Billy wouldn't.