Chapter II: Part 2

I now realised that the quest must be a solitary one, and I consoled myself with the thought that, if the ardours of the pilgrimage were unshared, so would be the glory of the prize. Fired with new enthusiasm, I shouted the name of Throp's wife to the everlasting hills, and the everlasting hills gave back the slogan in reverberating echoes--"Throp's wahfe." By midday I had reached the summit of Stanbury Moor, and the question was whether I should descend the populous Worth Valley to Keighley or strike northwards across the hills. Instinct impelled me to the latter course, and instinct was right. Late in the afternoon, faint but pursuing, I reached a hill-top village which the map seemed to identify with a certain Cowling Hill, but which was always spoken of as Cohen-eead.

I made my way to "The Golden Fleece," and there, in the bar parlour, I met an old man and a merry. His face was as round and almost as red as a Dutch cheese, and many a year had passed since he had last seen his feet. I felt drawn to this old man, whose baptismal name was Timothy Barraclough, but who always answered to the by-name of Tim o' Frolics; and when we had politely assured one another that it was grand weather for the hay and that lambs would soon be making a tidy price at Colne market, I spoke to him of the quest.

At first he remained silent, but after a few moments his blue eyes began to twinkle like stars in the firmament, and then, slapping his knees with both hands, he broke into an uncontrollable fit of laughter.

"Ay, ay," he said, "I know all about Throp's wife. Shoo lived at Cohen-eead, an' my mother telled me t' tale when I were nobbut a barn."

As I heard these words, I almost leaped for joy, and could have thrown my arms about the old man's neck, and embraced him. Remembering Pudsey, however, I refrained, but urged Tim o' Frolics to tell me all he knew.

"Throp was a farmer," he began, "and lived out Cornshaw way. He was a hard-workin' man, was Throp, but I reckon all his wark were nobbut laikin' anent what his wife could do. You see, her mother had gien her a spinnin'-wheel when shoo were wed, and eh! but shoo were a gooid 'un to spin. Shoo'd get t' house sided up by ten o'clock, an' then shoo'd set hersen down to t' wheel. Throp would sam up all t' bits o' fallen wool that he could find, an' Throp's wife would wesh 'em an' card 'em an' spin 'em into yarn, an' then shoo'd knit t' yarn into stockin's an' sell 'em at Keighley an' Colne. Shoo were that thrang shee'd sooin getten shut o' all t' wool that Throp could get howd on, an' then shoo axed t' farmers to let t' barns out o' t' village go round t' moors an' bring her t' wool that had getten scratted off t' yowes' backs for ten mile around. Shoo were a patteren wife, and sooin fowks began to say to one another: 'I've bin reight thrang to-day; I've bin well-nigh as thrang as Throp's wife.' So 'thrang as Throp's wife' gat to be a regular nominy, an' other fowks took to followin' her example; it were fair smittlin'! They bowt theirsens spinnin'-wheels, an' gat agate o' spinnin', while there were all nations o' stockins turned out i' Cohen-eead an' Cornshaw, enough for a whole army o' sodgers. Ay, an' t' women fowks gat their chaps to join i' t' wark; there were no settin' off for t' public of a neet, an' no threapin' or fratchin' at t' call-hoils. It was wark, wark, wark, through morn to neet, an' all on account o' Throp's wife an' her spinnin'-wheel.

"Well, after a time Cohen-eead had getten that sober an' hard-workin', t'owd devil began to grow a bit unaisy. He'd a lot o' slates, had t' devil; there was one slate for iverybody i' Cohen-eead. He'd had t' slates made i' two sizes, one for t' men an' one for t' women."

"The big slates were for the men and the little slates for the women, I suppose."

"I'm noan so sure o' that," Timothy rejoined, and his eyes began to twinkle again. "Well," he continued, "t' devil began to look at t' slates, an there was onmost nowt written on 'em; nobody had getten druffen, or illified his neighbour; there was nobbut a two-three grocers that had bin convicted o' scale-sins. So t' devil sends for t' god o' flies, and when he were come, he says to him: 'Nah then, Beelzebub, what's wrang wi' Cohen-eead? There's no business doin' there'; and he shows him t' slates. So Beelzebub taks t' slates and looks at 'em, an' then he scrats his heead an' he says: 'I can't help it, your Majesty. It's Throp's wife; that's what's wrang wi' Cohen-eead.'

"'Throp's wife! Throp's wife!' says Satan; 'an' who's Throp's wife to set hersen agean me?'

"'Shoo's made fowks i' Cohen-eead that thrang wi' wark they've no time to think o' sins.'

"'An' what have thy flies bin doin' all t' time?' asks Satan. 'They've bin laikin', that's what they've bin doin'. They ought to hae bin buzzin' round fowks' heeads an' whisperin' sinful thowts into their lug-hoils. How mony flies does thou keep at Cohen-eead?'

"T' god o' flies taks out his book an' begins to read t' list: 'Five hunderd mawks, three hunderd atter-cops, two hunderd an' fifty bummle-bees.' 'Bummle-bees! Bummle-bees!' says Satan. 'What's t' gooid o' them, I'd like to know? How mony house-flies, how mony blue-bottles hasta sent?' and wi' that he rives t' book out o' Beelzebub's hands and turns ower t' pages hissen.

"At lang length he gies him back his book, and he says: 'I sal hae to look into this misen. Throp's wife! I'll sooin sattle wi' Throp's wife. I'll noan have her turnin' Cohen-eead intul a Gardin o' Eden. I reckon I'm fair stalled o' that mak o' place.'

"So Satan gav out that he were baan for Cohen-eead an' wouldn't be back while to-morn. 'Twere lat i' t' afternooin when he'd getten theer, an' t' first thing he did were to creep behind a wall and change hissen intul a sarpint. An' as he were set theer, waitin' for it to get dark, he saw five blue-bottles that were laikin' at tig i' t' sunshine anent t' wall. Well, that made t'owd devil fair mad, for they ought to hae bin i' t' houses temptin' fowks to sin; so he oppened his cake-hoil, thrast out his forked tongue, an' swallowed three on 'em at one gulp. After that he felt a bit better. When it were turned ten o'clock, he crawled alang t' loans an' bridle-stiles, while he gat to Throp's farm. He sidled under t' door and into t' kitchen. It were as dark as a booit i' t' kitchen, an' he could hear Throp snorin' i' bed aboon t' balks. So he crawled up t' stairs, an' under t' chamer door, an' up on to t' bed. Eh! but Throp's wife would hae bin flustered if shoo'd seen a sarpint liggin' theer on t' pillow close agean her lug-hoil. But shoo were fast asleep, wi' Throp aside her snorin' like an owd ullet i' t' ivy-tree. So t' devil started temptin' her, and what doesta think he said?"

"I suppose he told her not to work so hard," I replied, "but take life more easily and quarrel a bit with her neighbours."

Tim o' Frolics paused for a moment to enjoy the luxury of seeing me fall into the pit that he had dug for me, and then went on:

"He said nowt o' t' sort. That's what t' blue-bottles had bin sayin' to her all t' time, an' all for nowt. Nay, t'owd devil were a sly 'un, an' knew more about Throp's wife nor all t' blue-bottles i' t' world. So he says to her: 'Keziah'--they called her Keziah after her grandmother--'thou's t' idlest dawkin' i' Cohen-eead. When arta baan to get agate o' workin'?'"

"But surely," I interrupted, "there was no temptation in telling her to work harder."

Timothy paused, and then, in a reproving voice, asked: "Who's tellin' t' tale, I'd like to know? Thou or me?"

I stood rebuked, and urged him to go on with his story, promising that I would not break in on the narrative again.

"Well, as I were sayin'," he continued, "t' devil kept tellin' her that shoo mun be reight thrang, an' not waste time clashin' with her neighbours; an' when he thowt he'd said enough he crawled down off t' bed an out o' house and away back to wheer he com frae.

"Next mornin' Throp's wife wakkened up at t' usual time an' crept out o' bed. There was nowt wrang wi' her, and o' course shoo knew nowt about t' royal visit that shoo'd bin honoured wi'. Shoo gat all t' housewark done, fed t' hens and t' cauves, an' was set down to her wheel afore ten o'clock. There shoo sat an' tewed harder nor iver. It were Setterday, an' shoo looked at t' bag o' wool and said to hersen that shoo'd have it all carded an' spun an' sided away afore shoo went to bed that neet. Shoo wouldn't give ower when t' time com for dinner or drinkins or supper, but shoo made Throp bring her a sup o' tea and summat to eat when he com in through his wark. An' all t' time shoo called hersen an idle dollops 'cause shoo weren't workin' hard enough. That were t' devil's game. But for all shoo tewed so hard, there was a gey bit o' wool left i' t' bag when ten o'clock com and 'twere time to get to bed. You see, 'twere bad wool; 'twere all feltered an' teed i' knots. But Throp's wife were noan baan to bed while shoo'd finished t' bag. So Throp said, if that were so, he mun set hissen down an' help wi' t' wark. So Throp carded an' Throp's wife spun, an' that set things forrad a bit. But t' hands o' t' clock went round as they'd niver done afore; eleven o'clock com and hauf-past eleven, and then a quairter to twelve. Throp's wife looked at t' clock, an' then at bag, an' then at Throp.

"'Throp,' shoo said, 'we'll noan be through wi t' wark by midneet.'

"'Then we sal hae to give ower,' said Throp. 'It'll be Sunday morn i' a quairter of an hour, an' I'm noan baan to work o' Sunday.'

"When Throp's wife heerd that shoo burst out a-roarin'. 'I'm an idle good-for-nowt,' shoo said. 'Eh! but I mun finish t' bag; I mun, I mun.'

"'I'm noan baan to work when t' clock has struck twelve,' Throp said agean, 'nor let thee work, nowther. I'm a deacon at t' Independent Chapil, an' I'll noan let fowks say that they saw a leet i' wer kitchen, an' heerd thy wheel buzzin' of a Sunday morn.'

"When Throp's wife heerd that, shoo fell to roarin' agean, for shoo knew they'd noan be through wi' t' spinnin' while a quairter past twelve. But at lang length shoo turned to Throp an' shoo said: 'Let's put t' clock back, an' then, if onybody's passin' an' looks in on us, an' wants to know why we're workin' of a Sunday morn, we can show 'em t' clock.'

"Throp said nowt for a bit; he was a soft sort o' a chap, an' didn't want to start fratchin' wi' his wife. So just to please her, he gat up on to t' stooil an' put back t' hands o' t' clock twenty minutes. An' t' clock gave a despert gert groan; 'twere summat atween a groan an' a sweer, an' it went straight to Throp's heart, an' he wished he'd niver melled wi' t' clock. Howiver, he com back to his cardin', an' when t' clock strack twelve, t' bag o' wool were empty, an' there were a gert hank o' spun yarn as big as a man's heead. Throp looked at his wife, an' there were a glint in her een that he'd niver seen theer afore; shoo were fair ditherin' wi' pride an' flustration. 'Fowks san't say "Thrang as Throp's wife" for nowt,' shoo said, and shoo gat up off t' stooil, sided away t' spinnin'-wheel, an' stalked off to bed wi' Throp at her heels. Eh! mon, but 'twere a false sort o' pride were yon."

"Did people find out about putting the clock back?" I asked.

"Nay, 'twere worse nor that," Timothy replied. "That neet there was a storm at Cohen-eead the likes o' which had niver bin seen theer afore. There was thunner an' leetnin', and a gert sough o' wind that com yowlin' across t' moor an' freetened iverybody wellnigh out o' their five senses. Fowks wakkened up an' said 'twere Judgment Day, an' T' Man Aboon had coom to separate t' sheep frae t' goats. When t' cockleet com, t' storm had fallen a bit, an' fowks gat out o' bed to see if owt had happened 'em. Slates, and mebbe a chimley or two, had bin rived off t' roofs, but t' beasts were all reight i' t' mistals, an' then they went up on to t' moors to look for t' sheep. When they got nigh Throp's farm, they noticed there was a gert hoil in his riggin' big enough for a man to get through. So they shouted to Throp, but he niver answered. Then they oppened t' door an' looked in. There was nobody i' t' kitchen, but t' spinnin'-wheel were all meshed to bits and there were a smell o' burnin' wool. They went all ower t' house, but they could see nowt o' Throp nor o' Throp's wife, nor o' Throp's wife's chintz-cat that shoo called Nimrod, nor yet o' Throp's parrot that he'd taught to whistle _Pop goes t' Weazel_. They lated 'em ower t' moors an' along t' beck boddom, but 'twere all for nowt, an' nobody i' Cohen-eead iver set een on 'em again."

Such was Timothy Barraclough's story of Throp's wife and of the terrible fate which befell her and her husband. I spent the night at the inn, and next morning made further inquiries into the matter. There was little more to be learnt, but I was told that farmers crossing the moors on their way home from Colne market had sometimes heard, among the rocks on the crest of the hills, the sound of a spinning-wheel; but others had laughed at this, and had said that what they had heard was only the cry of the nightjar among the bracken. It was also rumoured that on one occasion some boys from the village had made their way into a natural cavern which ran beneath the rocks, and, after creeping some distance on hands and knees, had been startled by ghostly sounds. What they heard was the mournful whistling of a popular air, as it were by some caged bird, and then the strain was taken up by the voices of a man and woman singing in unison:

Up and down the city street
In and out the "Easel,"
That's the way the money goes,
Pop goes the weazel.

"IT MUN BE SO"

I met her on her way through the path-fields to the cowshed; she was gathering, in the fading light of an October evening, the belated stars of the grass of Parnassus, and strapped to her shoulders was the "budget," shaped to the contour of the back, and into which the milk was poured from the pails. It was a heavy load for a girl of twelve, but she was used to it, and did not grumble. Her father was dead, all the day-tale men had been called up, and her mother, she assured me, "was that thrang wi' t' hens an' t' cauves, shoo'd no time for milkin' cows."

In the village she was subjected to a good deal of ridicule. The children made fun of her on her way home from school, and called her "daft Lizzie"; the old folks, when they heard her muttering to herself, would shrug their shoulders and pass the remark that she was "nobbut a hauf-rocked 'un"--an insult peculiarly galling to her mother.

"A hauf-rocked 'un!" she would exclaim. "Nay, I rocked her misel i' t' creddle while my shackles fair worked. Shoo taks after her dad, that's what's wrang wi' Lizzie. A feckless gowk was Watmough; he couldn't frame to do owt but play t' fiddle i' t' sky-parlour, or sit ower t' fire eatin' fat-shives."

Lizzie's daftness was not a serious matter; it consisted partly in a certain dreaminess, which brought a yonderly look into her eyes, and made her inattentive to what was going on around her, and partly in that habit of talking to herself which has already been referred to. I had won her confidence and friendship from the time when I rescued her "pricky-back urchin" from being kicked to death by the farm boys, who declared that hedgehogs always made their way into the byres and milked the cows. Since then we had had many talks together, but this was the first time that I had accompanied her when she went to milk.

Milking in summer-time, when the cows are out at grass, is pleasant enough, but it is different of a winter evening. Then one gropes one's way by the light of the stable lantern through the rain-sodden fields to the cowshed, the reeking atmosphere of which often makes one feel faint as one plunges into it from out of the frosty air. But Lizzie liked the work at all seasons, and was never so much at ease as when she was firmly planted on her stool, her curly head butting into a cow's ribs, and the warm milk swishing rhythmically into her pail. There were three cows in the byre, and she had called them after her aunts. Eliza, like her namesake, was "contrairy," and had to have her hind legs hobbled lest she should kick over the pail. Molly and Anne were docile beasts that chewed the cud with bovine complacency. It was Lizzie's habit to tell the cows stories as she milked, making them up as she went along; but to-day she found a better listener in myself.

Our talk was at first of cows; thence it passed to village gossip, pigs, hedgehogs, and so back to cows once more. Knowing the imaginative bent of her mind, I put the question to her: "Wouldn't you like to know just what becomes of the milk you send off to Leeds by train every day?"

"Aye, I like to know who sups t' milk," she answered, "an' so does t' cows."

"But you can't know that," I said. "You don't take it round to the houses."

"Nay, I don't tak it round to t' houses, but I reckon out aforehand who's to get it."

It was evident that Lizzie had some private arrangement for the disposal of her milk, and I encouraged her to let me share her secret.

"I've milked for all maks o' fowks sin' father deed," she went on, "bettermy fowks and poor widdies. Once I milked for t' King."

"Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle?"

Lizzie knew nothing about pleasantry, and was not put out by my frivolous question.

"'Twern't nowther o' them places," she continued; "'twere Leeds Town Hall. Mother read it out o' t' paper that he was comin' to Leeds to go round t' munition works, and would have his dinner wi' t' Lord Mayor. So I said to misel: 'I'll milk for t' King.' He's turned teetotal, has t' King, sin t' war started, and I telled t' cows all about it t' neet afore. 'Ye mun do your best, cushies, to-morn', I said. 'T' King'll be wantin' a sup o' milk to his ham and eggs, and I reckon 'twill do him more gooid nor his pint o' beer, choose how. An' just you think on that gentle-fowks has tickle bellies. Don't thou go hallockin' about i' t' tonnup-field, Eliza, and get t' taste o' t' tonnups into thy cud same as thou did last week.' Eh! they was set up about it, was t' cows; I'd niver seen 'em so chuffy. So next day, just to put 'em back i' their places, I made em gie their milk to t' owd fowks i' t' Union."

"Who else have you milked for?" I asked, after a pause, during which she had moved her stool from Eliza to roan Anne.

"Nay, I can't reckon 'em all up," she replied. "Soomtimes it's weddin's an' soomtimes it's buryin's; then there's lile barns that's just bin weaned, and badly fowks i' bed."

"And will you sometimes milk for a lady I know that lives in Leeds?"

Lizzie was silent for a moment, and then asked: "Is shoo a taicher, an' has shoo gotten fantickles and red hair?"

"No," I replied, and I thought with some amusement of the freckled face and aureoled head of the village schoolmistress, who had got across with Lizzie on account of her inability to do sums and speak "gradely English." "She's an old lady, with white hair; she's my mother."

"Aye, I'll milk for thy mother," Lizzie answered; "but I'm thrang wi' sodgers this week an' next."

"Soldiers in camp?" I asked.

"Nay, sodgers i' t' hospital. Poor lads, they're sadly begone for want o' a sup o' milk. I can see 'em i' their beds i' them gert wards, and there's country lads amang 'em that knows all about cows an' plooin'. Their faces are as lang as a wet week when they think on that they've lossen an arm or a leg, an' will niver milk nor ploo no more. Eh! but I'm fain to milk for t' sodgers."

"But how can you be sure that the right people get your milk?" I asked at last.

She did not answer at once, and I knew that she was wondering at my stupidity, and considering how best she could make me understand. But she could find no words to bring home to my intelligence the confidence that was hers. All that she could say was: "It mun be so."

"It mun be so." At first I thought it was just the usual game of make-believe in which children love to indulge. But it was much more than this, and the simple words were an expression of her sure faith that what she willed must come to pass. "It mun be so." Why not? "If ye have faith, and shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea, it shall be done."

THE INNER VOICE

Fear is a resourceful demon, with whom we are engaged in perpetual conflict from the cradle to the grave. Fear assumes many forms, and has always a shrewd eye for the joints in that armour of courage and confidence which we put on in self-defence. One man conquers fear of danger only to fall a prey to fear of public opinion; another succumbs to superstitious fear, while a third, steadfast against all these, comes under the thraldom of the most insidious and malign of all forms of fear--the fear of death.

The power of fear has of late been forcibly impressed on my mind by hearing from his own lips the story of my friend, Job Hesketh. Six months ago I should have said that Job was entirely unconscious of fear. I have never known a man so good-humouredly indifferent to public opinion. "Say what thou thinks and do what thou says" was the golden rule upon which he acted, and which he commended to others. Superstition, in its myriad forms, was for him a lifelong jest. Thirteen people at table had never been known to take the keen edge off his Yorkshire appetite, and he liked to make fun of his friends' dread of ghosts, witches and "gabbleratchets." Nothing pleased him better than to stroll of an evening round the nearest cemetery, and he had often been heard to declare: "I'd as sooin eat my supper off a tombstone as off wer kitchen table."

He faced danger with reckless unconcern every day of his life. He was employed as a "vessel-man" at the Leeds Steel Works, working on a twelve-hours' shift, and his duty was to attend to the huge "vessels" or crucibles in which the molten pig-iron is converted by the Bessemer process into steel. The operation is one of enthralling interest and beauty, and Job Hesketh's soul was in his work. The molten iron from the blast furnaces flows along its channel into huge "ladles" or cauldrons, and from there it is conveyed into a still larger reservoir or "mixer," where the greater part of the slag--which floats as a scum on the surface--is drawn off. Then the purified metal passes into other cauldrons, which are borne along by hydraulic machinery and their contents gently tipped into the crucibles, which lower their gaping mouths to receive the daffodil stream of molten iron. When their maws are full, the crucibles are once more brought into an erect position, and the process of converting iron into steel begins. A blast of air is driven through the liquid metal, and the "vessels" are at once changed into fountains of fire. A gigantic spray of flame and sparks rises from their gaping mouths and ascends to a height of twenty feet, changing its colour from green to gold and from gold to violet and blue as the impure gases of sulphur and phosphorus are purged by the blast. For twenty minutes this continues, and then the roar of the blast and the fiery spray die down. What entered the crucible as iron is now ready to be poured forth as steel. Once more the "vessels" are lowered and made to discharge their contents. First comes a molten cascade of basic slag which is borne away to cool, then to be ground to finest powder, before its quickening power is given to pasture and cornfield, imparting a deeper purple to the clover and a mellower gold to the rippling ears of wheat. When all the slag has been drawn off, there is a moment's pause, and then a new cascade begins. The steel is beginning to flow, not in a daffodil stream like the slag, but in a cascade of exquisite turquoise blue, melting away at the sides into iridescent opal. Sometimes a great cloud of steam from the pit below passes across the mouth of the crucible, and then the torrent of molten steel takes on all the colours of the rainbow, and the great shed, with its alert, swiftly moving figures, is suffused with a radiance of unearthly beauty.

When the vessels have discharged all their precious liquid, the cauldron into which the metal has been poured is swung in mid-air by that unseen, effortless power which we know as hydraulic pressure, through the arc of a wide circle, until it reaches the point where the great ingot-moulds stand ready to receive the molten steel. Then the cauldron is tapped, and once more the stream of turquoise flows forth, until the ladle is empty and the moulds are filled to the brim with liquid fire. Such was the work in which Job Hesketh was engaged, and it absorbed him body and soul from year's end to year's end.

Job was a giant in stature and strength. Born on a farm in the very heart of the Yorkshire wolds, he had drifted, as a boy of sixteen, to Leeds, and had found the life and activities of the forge as congenial as those of the farmstead. He had reached the age of fifty without knowing a day's illness, and he would have been the first to admit that fortune had smiled on him. His home life had been smooth, his wages had been sufficient for his simple needs, and the good health that he enjoyed was shared by his wife and five children. It is true that, in spite of his long years of service, he had never risen to be a foreman; but that, he knew quite well, was his own fault. During the summer months his conduct at the forge was exemplary, but as soon as November set in it was another matter. Fox-hunting was the passion of his life, and with the fall of the leaf in the last days of October, Job grew restless. He would eagerly scan the papers for news of the doings of the Bramham Moor Hunt, and from the opening of the season to its close he would play truant on at least one day a week. He knew every cover for leagues around, and thought nothing of tramping six or eight miles to be ready for the meet before following the hounds and huntsman all day on foot across the stubble fields. In vain did foremen and works-managers remonstrate with him; he promised to reform, but never kept his word. The blood of many generations of wold farmers ran in his veins, and everyone of them had been a keen sportsman. The cry of the hounds rang in his dreams of a night, and when Mary Hesketh, lying by her husband's side, heard him muttering in his sleep: "Tally-ho! Hark to Rover! Stown away!" she knew that, when the hooter sounded at half-past five, it would summon him, not to work, but to a day with the hounds. He would return home between four and five, mud-stained from head to foot, triumphant at heart, but with an amusingly cowed expression on his face, as of a dog that expects a whipping.

The only whipping that Mary Hesketh could administer to her repentant Job was that of the tongue. In her early matrimonial life she had wielded this like a flail, and Job had winced before the blows which she delivered. But in course of time she had come to realise that her husband's passion for the chase was incurable, and, like a wise woman, she accepted it as part of her destiny. "Thou's bin laikin' agean, thou gert good-for-nowt," was her usual greeting for Job on these occasions.

"Ay, ay, lass," he would reply; "I've addled nowt all t' day. But thou promised, when we wed, to tak me for better or worse; an' if t' worse wasn't t' hounds, it would happen be hosses or drink. Sithee, Mally, I've browt thee a two-three snowdrops; thou can wear 'em o' Sunday."

Such was the Job Hesketh that I had known and loved for many years, and I saw no reason why his genial temper and buoyant heart should not remain with him to the end of his life. Yet within six months the man changed completely. He grew suddenly old and shrunken; the great blithe laugh that pealed through the house was silenced, the look of suave contentment with himself and with the world about him vanished from his face, and in its place I saw a nervous, troubled glance as of one who suspects a lurking foe ready to spring at his throat. The change which came over Job was like that which sometimes comes over a city sky in autumn. The morning breaks fair, and the sun rises from out a cloudless, frosty sky, promising a day of sunshine. But then, with the lighting of a hundred thousand fires, a change takes place. The smoke cannot escape in the windless air, but hangs like a pall over the houses. The sun grows chill, coppery and rayless, and soon a fog, creeping along the river, silently encloses each particle of smoke within a watery shroud, and a mantle of murky gloom invests the city.

What was it that wrought this sudden change in the mind of Job Hesketh? The story is soon told. For a long time there had been no serious accident at the Leeds Steel Works, and the workmen, almost without being aware of it, had grown somewhat reckless of the dangers which they had to face. They knew quite well that in many of the operations which the metal undergoes in its passage from crude ore to ingots of steel, a false step meant instant death. But they had known this so long that the knowledge had lost its terrors.

There are many moments of enforced idleness for the vesselmen as they stand on their raised platform in front of the crucibles; but, even during these moments of inactivity, alertness of mind is required. One morning their minds were not alert, and one of the workmen, Abe Verity by name, seated on the railing which separates the platform from the pit in which stand the ingot-moulds, had snatched the cap from the head of one of his fellows. The latter, in response to this, had raised his crowbar, as if he meant to strike Abe on the head, and Abe, lurching backward on the railing in order to avoid the blow, had lost his balance and fallen backwards. Under ordinary circumstances this would have meant nothing worse than a drop into the pit below, but, as ill-luck would have it, one of the cauldrons of molten steel was being swung along the arc of the pit by a hydraulic crane, and, at the very moment when Abe lost his balance, it had reached the point beneath which he was sitting. There was an agonised cry from the vesselmen on their platform, a hissing splash with great gouts of liquid fire flying in all directions, a sickening smell, and then, a few minutes later, a clergyman, hastily summoned from the adjoining church, was reciting the burial service over the calcined body of Abe Verity.

Blank terror gleamed in the eyes of the men who had been witnesses of this grim holocaust. All work was suspended for the day, and Job Hesketh was led home, dazed and trembling in every joint, by his two eldest sons, who worked in another part of the forge. Huddled together in his chair by the kitchen fire, perspiration streamed from his face. He was in a state bordering on delirium, and the answers which he gave to the questions put to him were wildly incoherent.

Abe Verity was his friend. They had been boys together in the little wold village where they had been born, and it was at Job's earnest entreaty that Abe had quitted farm work and joined his friend at the Leeds Steel Works. Their tastes had been similar, and the Veritys had often joined the Heskeths in their summer holiday at the seaside. And now, in one fell moment, the lifelong friendship had been severed, and Abe, the glad, strong, heart-warm man, had plunged from life to death.

Job refused to go to bed that night, but sat in his chair by the flickering embers of his kitchen fire. His wife, lying awake in the bedroom above, listened to his hard breathing and to the half-stifled words which now and again fell from his lips. He was brooding over the terrible scene he had witnessed. Every detail had bitten itself into his brain like acid into metal. He saw the waves of liquid steel closing over his friend, the greedy swirl of the molten metal, and then the little tongues of red fire playing upon the surface. They reminded him of the red tongues of wolves which he had once seen in a cage, as they licked their chops after their feed of horse-flesh. Then it was the clergyman reading from his Prayer Book in the garish light of the forge that fastened itself on his mind. The words seemed charged with bitter mockery: "We give Thee hearty thanks, for that it hath pleased Thee to deliver this our brother out of the miseries of this sinful world." "Hearty thanks"! he muttered scornfully. "I'll gie God nowt o' t' sort. Life tasted gooid to Abe. He knew nowt about t' miseries o' t' sinful world. He led a clean life, did Abe; an' he were fain o' life, same as I am."

Time gradually assuaged the first horror of the tragedy which Job had witnessed, but it failed to bring him peace of mind. Fear of death, which up to the moment of the tragedy at the forge had never given him an uneasy moment, now entered into possession of his mind and haunted him awake or asleep. His work at the forge, once a joy to him, was now an unbroken agony. He saw death lying in wait for him every time he climbed a ladder or lifted a crowbar. Nor could he wholly escape from the terror in what had always seemed to him the security of his home. The howling of the wind in the chimney, the muttering of a distant thunderstorm, even the sight of his razor on the dressing-table, were enough to arouse the morbid fear and strike terror to his heart.

He said little of the agony that he suffered, but it was written plainly in his eyes, in his ashen face and in the trembling of his hand. I did my best to induce him to speak his mind to me, but with poor success. One Sunday evening, however, when I found him and his wife seated by themselves over the fire, I found him more communicative, and I realised that what he dreaded most of all in the thought of death was loss of personality. Of the unelect Calvinist's fear of hell he knew nothing. What troubled him was, rather, dissatisfaction with heaven. Job was not much of a theologian, though he attended chapel regularly of a Sunday evening. His ideas of heaven were drawn mainly from certain popular hymns, which depicted the life of the redeemed as a perpetual practice of psalmody.

"What sud I be doin' i' heaven," he asked, "wi' a crown o' gowd on my heead and nowt to do all day but twang a harp, just as if I were one o' them lads i' t' band? What mak o' life's yon for a chap like me, that's allus bin used to tug an' tew for his livin'!"

"Nay, Job," his wife replied, "but thou'll be fain o' a bit o' rest when thy turn cooms. It's a place o' rest, that's what heaven is; thou'll noan be wanted to play on t' harp without thou's a mind to."

"I can't sit idle like thee, Mary," Job answered. "I mun allus be doin' summat. If it isn't Steel Works, it's fox-huntin'; and if it isn't fox-huntin' it's fettlin' up t' henhouse, or doin' a bit o' wark wi' my shool i' t' tatie-patch."

"Thou'll happen change thy mind when thou's a bit owder," was Mary Hesketh's answer to this. "When I'm ower thrang wi' wark on a washin'-day, I just set misen down on t' chair and think o' t' rest o' heaven, an' I say ower to misen yon lines that I larnt frae my muther:

"I knew a poor lass that allus were tired,
Shoo lived in a house wheer help wasn't hired.
Her last words on earth were, 'Dear friends, I am goin'
Wheer weshin' ain't doon, nor sweepin', nor sewin',
Don't weep for me now, don't weep for me niver,
I'm boun' to do nowt for iver an' iver.'"

"Ay, lass," Job replied, "that's reight enif for thee. Breedin' barns taks it out o' a woman. But it'll noan suit me so weel."

I did my best to reason with Job and to enlarge his conception of the life to come and of the progress of the soul after death, but I made little impression on his mind. A heaven without forges, fox-hunting and hen-coops offered him no possible attraction.

"What thou says may be true," he would answer, "but it'll noan be Job Hesketh that's sittin' theer. It'll be somebody else o' t' same name."

Thus did he fall back upon his ever-besetting fear of loss of personality in the life hereafter, and, like his Biblical namesake, he refused to be comforted.

The agony which Job Hesketh was enduring did not make him listless. On the contrary, it seemed to give him new energy. It is true that the old pleasure had gone out of his work and play, but to him work and play meant life, and to life he clung with the energy of one who lived in constant fear lest it should be suddenly snatched from him. It was January when Abe Verity had met with his fatal accident, and all through the next six months Job toiled like a galley-slave.

It was the practice of the Heskeths to spend the first ten days of August at the seaside. It was their annual holiday, long talked of and long prepared, and it was invariably spent at Bridlington. There Job could indulge to the full in his favourite holiday pastime of swimming, and there he was in close touch with the undulating wold country where his boyhood had been spent. He could renew old acquaintances, lend a hand to the farmers, or wander at will along the chalk beds of the _gipsies_ or dry water-courses which wind their way from the hills to the sea. Years ago he and his wife had given a trial to Scarborough, Blackpool and Morecambe as seaside resorts, but they felt like foreigners there and had come back to Bridlington as to an old home.

"There's nowt like Bridlington sands," he would say, in self-defence. "I'm noan sayin' but what there's a better colour i' t' watter at Blackpool, but there's ower mich wind on' t sea. Sea-watter gits into your mouth when you're swimmin' and then you've to blow like a grampus. Scarborough's ower classy for t' likes o' Mary an' me; it's all reight for bettermy-bodies that likes to dizen theirselves out an' sook cigars on church parade. But me an' t' owd lass allus go to Bridlington. It's homely, is Bridlington, an' you're not runnin' up ivery minute agean foreign counts an' countesses that ought to bide wheer they belang, an' keep theirsens to theirsens."

There had been no improvement in Job's state of mind during the long summer days that preceded his holiday. In his most robust days inquiries as to his health always elicited the answer that he was "just middlin'," which is the invariable answer that the cautious Yorkshireman vouchsafes to give. Now, with a shrunken frame, and fever in his eye, he was still "just middlin'," and, only when hard pressed would he acknowledge the carking fear that was gnawing at his heart. I was, however, not without hope that change of air and sea-bathing, for which Job had a passion almost equal to that for fox-hunting, would restore him to health and tranquillity of mind.

The Heskeths started for Bridlington on a Friday, and on the following Sunday the news reached me that my old friend had been drowned while bathing. I was stunned by the blow, and a feeling of intense gloom pervaded my mind all day. But next morning the rumour was corrected. Job, it seems, had gone for a long swim on the Saturday morning, and, not realising that he had lost strength during the last six months, had swum too far out of his depth. His strength had given out on the return journey, and only the arrival of a boatman had saved him from death by drowning. Relieved as I was by this second account of what had happened, I was, nevertheless, a prey to the fear that this second encounter with death would have enhanced that agony of mind which he had endured ever since the moment when his friend, Abe Verity, had fallen into the cauldron of molten steel. I waited anxiously for Job's return home and determined to go and see him on the evening following his arrival.

I was in my bedroom, preparing to start off, when, to my surprise, I heard Job's voice at my front door. I ran downstairs and was face to face with a Job Hesketh that I had not known for six months. His head and shoulders were erect, he had put on flesh, and the cowed look had entirely vanished from his eyes. I at once congratulated him on his improved appearance.

"Aye, aye," he answered, "there's nowt mich wrang wi' me."

"Bridlington, I see, has done you a world of good."

"Nay, I've bin farther nor Bridlington," he replied, and the old merry twinkle, that I knew so well and had missed so long, came into his eyes.

"What do you mean?" I asked. "Have you been on board one of the Wilson liners in the Humber and crossed over to Holland?"

"Farther nor Holland," he replied, with a chuckle. "I've bin to heaven. I reckon I'm t' first Yorkshireman that's bin to heaven an' gotten a return ticket given him."

"Sit down, Job," I said, "and stop that nonsense. What do you mean?"

Job seated himself by my study fire, leisurely took from his pocket a dirty clay pipe and a roll of black twist, which he proceeded to cut and pound. As he was thus engaged he would look up from time to time into my face and enjoy to the full the look of impatience imprinted on it.

"Aye, lad," he began at last, "I've bin to heaven sin I last saw thee, an' heaven's more like Leeds nor I thowt for."

"Like Leeds!" I exclaimed, and, as Job seemed in a jesting mood, I decided to humour him. "I fancy it must have been the other place you got to. To think of you not being able to tell heaven from hell."

"Nay, 'twere heaven, reight enif," he continued, undisturbed. "I could tell it by t' glint i' t' een o' t' lads an' lasses."

I could see that Job had a story to tell of more than ordinary interest. His changed appearance and buoyant manner showed clearly that something had happened to him which had dispelled the pall of gloom which had settled on him since Abe Verity's death. I was determined to hear the story in full.

"Now then, Job," I said, "let us get to business. Take that pipe out of your mouth and tell me what you have been doing at Bridlington."

Job laid down his clay pipe, cleared his throat, and polished his face till it shone, with a large red handkerchief, and began his story.

"Well, you see, t' missus an' me got to Bridlington Friday afore Bank Holiday, an' next mornin' I went down to t' shore for my swim same as I'd allus done afore. 'Twere a breet mornin', an t' chalk cliffs o' Flamborough were glistenin' i' t' sun-leet. T' fishin' boats were out at sea, an' t' air were fair wick wi' kittiwakes an' herrin' gulls. So I just undressed misen, walked down to t' watter an' started swimmin'. Eh! but t' sea were bonny an' warm, an' for once I got all yon dowly thowts o' death clean out o' my head. So I just struck out for t' buoy that were anchored out at sea, happen hafe a mile frae t' shore. That had allus bin my swim sin first we took to comin' to Bridlington, and I'd niver had no trouble i' swimmin' theer an' back. I got to t' buoy all reight an' rested misen a bit an' looked round. Gow! but 'twere a grand seet. I could see t' leet-house at Spurn, and reight i' front o' me were Bridlington wi' t' Priory Church and up beyond were fields an' fields of corn wi' farm-houses set amang t' plane-trees an' t' sun-leet glistenin' on their riggins. Efter a while I started to swim back. But it were noan so easy. Tide were agean me an' there were a freshish breeze off t' land. Howiver, I'd no call to hurry misen, so when I got a bit tired I lay on my back, an' floated an' looked up at t' gulls aboon my head. But then I fan' out 'twere no use floatin'; t' tide were driftin' me out to sea. So I got agate o' swimmin' an' kept at it for wellnigh ten minutes. But t' shore were a lang way off, an' then, sudden-like, I began to think o' Abe Verity, an' t' fear o' death got howd on me an' clutched me same as if I'd bin taen wi' cramp. There were lads fishin' frae boats noan so far off, an' I hollaed to 'em; but they niver heerd. I tewed an' better tewed, but I got no forrarder; an' then I knew I were boun' to drown."

As Job got to this point in his story something of the old terror crept into his eyes, and I did my best to cheer him.

"Well, Job," I said, "they tell me that drowning is the pleasantest kind of death that there is."

His face brightened up immediately, and he replied: "Thou's tellin' true, lad, an' what's more, I know all about it. If anybody wants to know what it's like to be drowned, send 'em to Job Hesketh. If I'd as mony lives as an owd tom-cat, I'd get shut on 'em all wi' drownin'."

Job's spirits were evidently restored, so I urged him to get on with his story.

"Well," he continued, "I tugged an' tewed as lang as I could, but my mouth began to get full o' watter, my legs an' airms were dead beat, an' I reckoned that 'twere all ower wi' me. An' then a fearful queer sort o' thing happened me. I were i' my father's farm on t' wold, laikin' wi' my brothers same as I used to do when I were a lile barn. An', what's more, I thowt it were my ninth birthday. You see, when I were nine yeer owd, my father gave me two gimmer lambs an' I were prouder yon day nor iver I'd bin i' my life afore. Weel, that were t' day that had coom back; I knew nowt about drownin', but theer was I teein' a bit o' ribbin' about t' lambs' necks an' givin' 'em a sup o' milk out o' a bottle. An' then I were drivin' wi' my father an' mother i' t' spring-cart to Driffield markit. I'd donned my best clothes and my nuncle had gien me a new sixpenny-bit for a fairin', an' I were to buy choose-what I liked. Well, I were aimin' to think how I sud spend t' brass when I got to Driffield, when suddenly I weren't a lile barn no more. I were Job Hesketh, vesselman at Leeds Steel Works, and I were drownin' i' t' sea. I saw a boat noan so far away and I tried to holla to t' boatman, but 'twere no use; all my strength had given out, an' my voice were nobbut a groan. An' then----"

Job paused, and I looked up into his face. A strange radiance had come over it, such as I had never seen there before. I had heard it said that all that was brightest in a man's past life rises like a vision before his eyes when, in the act of drowning, his body sinks once, and then again, beneath the water, but I had never before confronted a man who could relate in detail what had happened to him. Then there was Job's story about his return ticket to heaven, which puzzled me, and I urged him to continue his story.

"Thou'll reckon I'm talkin' blether," he went on, "but I tell thee it's true, ivery word on it. I'll tak my Bible oath on it. All on a sudden I were stannin' i' a gert park, and eh! but there were grand trees. They were birk-trees, an' their boles were that breet they fair glistened i' t' sunleet. An' underneath t' birks were bluebells, yakkers an' yakkers o' bluebells, an' I thowt they were bluer an' breeter nor ony I'd seen afore. There were all maks o' birds i' t' trees--spinks an' throstles an' blackbirds--an' t' air aboon my head were fair wick wi' larks an' pipits singin' as canty as could be. Weel, I followed along t' beck-side while I com to a gert lake, wi' lads an' lasses sailin' boats on it. So I said to misen: 'My word! but it's Roundhay Park an' all.' But it wern't nowt o' t' sort. For one thing there were no policemen about, same as you'd see at Roundhay on a Bank Holiday, an' at low side o' t' lake there was a town wi' all maks an' manders o' buildin's; an', what's more, a steel works wi' blast-furnaces. Weel, I were stood there, watchin' t' childer paddlin' about i' t' watter, when somebody clapped his hand on my showder an' sang out: 'Hullo! Job, how long hasta bin here?' I looked round an', by t' Mass! who sud I see but Abe Verity."

"Abe Verity!" I exclaimed.

"Ay, 'twere Abe hissen, plain as life.

"So I said: 'Hullo! Abe, how ista?'

"'Just middlin',' says Abe, 'an' how's thisen? How long hasta bin here?'