Chapter XIII

FROM this time onward for some months there is little to record. The parties to the great law suit awaited with what patience they might the final trial of the all-important issue. The failure of the attempt to stay the work at Co-op Mill pending the final decision secured for Tom Pinder and his colleagues a welcome breathing space. If it were possible all hands bent themselves to their respective tasks with increased energy. The check to the plaintiff gave them heart for the present and hope for the future. Every precaution was taken to guard against any fouling or minishing of the stream.

The people of the Holme Valley are even to this day a litigious, disputatious race. They are law-loving in an inverted sense. An average native does not feel that he has lived his life unless he has at least once been prosecutor or plaintiff in a "law do." With the poet he may be supposed to sing--

"'Tis better to have sued and lost
Than never sued at all."

And the pros and cons of any _cause celebre_ are discussed wherever men foregather long before the fierce light of the Courts beat upon the matter. The "company" of the village public constitute themselves into an informal jury. Generally each side has its adherents. The witnesses, or such of them as frequent the houses of entertainment, tell and tell again the story they are to repeat in Court. The strong and the weak points of the evidence are discussed, criticized, cross-examined, as it were, with all the acumen of the native mind, and all the freedom of irresponsibility, and of the license that ignores the trammelling confines of the laws of evidence. The peculiar qualifications of the local lawyers engaged are discussed with a particularity that would very much surprise, and not always gratify the gentlemen whose merits and demerits are so freely appraised. Illustrations drawn from previous forensic contests are liberally drawn upon. There is generally in the company some man who has purchased by bitter experience the right to speak with authority, who airs his knowledge of the intricate mazes of legal proceedings. His conversation bristles with technical terms. He speaks glibly of writs, summonses, subpoenas, judgments, appeals, bills of costs and the taxation thereof. If by good fortune he possesses a copy of an ancient text-book and can produce text and verse in support of his assertions he is an opponent to be admired, but shunned. In public-house controversy the man who is most dogmatic, who can shout loudest and longest is usually adjudged the victor, especially if he is prepared to back his opinion and table the money; but even he must yield to the visible _dicta_ of the printed word. By the time the cause is ripe for hearing, bets have been made and taken; the adherents of the adversaries have ranged themselves; there are the village Montagues and Capulets, and the local attorney goes into Court the champion of a score of clients whose very existence he is unaware of.

Now in Holmfirth Jabez Tinker's defeat had been celebrated at the _Cropper's Arms_ by a beast-heart supper. The landlord had provided the beast-heart in the due recognition of the policy of throwing a sprat to catch a mackerel. There had been some talk of inviting Edwin Sykes to preside at the supper, but even Holmfirth hardihood has its bounds. Tom Pinder, the landlord had shrewdly surmised, would prove a kill-joy, and as for Ben Garside, though every feeling of his heart said "yes" to the invitation, he was kept away partly by his own sense of propriety, but still more by the emphatic injunctions of his better half.

"Tha'rt nooan bahn to shaat, Ben, afore tha'rt aat o' th' wood, an' when tha does shaat, tha mun do thi shaatin' i' decent company, an' not amang yon' beer-swillin' hogs at th' _Cropper's Arms_. What do they care whether yo' win or looise? There isn't one on 'em but 'ud sell yo' for a quart o' ale. Yo'r nooan bahn to lower yo'rsen bi mixin' amang that lot, it says i'th Book theer 'at i' vain the net is spread i' th' seet o' ony bird; but th' kind o' bird at th' net o' th' _Cropper's_ is set for mun be bats darkened wi' brewer's grain, an' that's all t' grain some on 'em feed on."

It did not lessen Jabez Tinker's irritation and general sense of all things being awry that he was in many ways made conscious that the only public opinion that he really cared about--that of his own neighbourhood--was dead against him. Mr. Tinker affected to despise the sentiments of his neighbours, and he certainly could not be accused of stooping to court popularity. But no man is really indifferent to the good or ill-word of his own little world. And Jabez was aware that even his own household was not on his side. To be sure in the rare visits he paid to his ailing wife at Harrogate he was sure of one sympathetic listener as he unfolded in brief, terse sentences the story of his wrongs, in which he had almost persuaded himself to believe, and of the indignities which he concluded must be patent to everyone. But Dorothy he knew to be openly and avowedly in the camp of the enemy, and this was an ever rankling sore. Jabez had declared to himself that his niece was the illest of all birds fouling its own nest. She was a Tinker, his brother's daughter, and it was her bounden duty to take his side and fight his battle whether he were right or wrong. The mere stranger and passer-by, they might scan and scrutinize; but for the girl who slept under his roof and sat at his table to condemn her heart, was the blackest treason and gross ingratitude Jabez had never heard of Walpole's reply to the county member who promised his vote whenever he should think the member in the right. "I want men who'll back me right or wrong: through thick and thin." But Jabez had the same views as to the countenance he was entitled to expect from his niece.

And Dorothy was made to feel that her uncle's feelings were very bitter towards her. The subject of the lawsuit was never referred to, but Jabez, never a demonstrative or genial relative, now became cold, repellent, caustic. If there was a death in the house, Betty declared, it could not be gloomier, and if it wasn't for leaving Miss Dorothy she wouldn't care how soon she changed her name and state.

All this was, one may be sure, not conducive to Dorothy's serenity. She had, too, at times, a sense of treachery to her uncle. Was she justified in secretly aiding and abetting his enemy, even if that enemy were an enemy _malgré lui_? How was she to be certain that what most people said was true, that her uncle was merely persecuting a rival in trade to crush him? Could she, indeed, believe that of that stern, austere man, the pillar of Aenon Chapel, quoted and esteemed throughout the whole Baptist denomination who of all other men, she had thought, however unlovable was at least a just man. These considerations were of themselves sufficient to disquiet a young and sensitive mind. There was another. Was Dorothy honest with herself? It was Dorothy who asked the question. And when man or maid has come to the pass of asking so searching a question it is odds that conscience has a ready "No." Was it _par exemple_, quite the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, that it was only for her friend's sake, and for the triumph of abstract justice against an unholy conspiracy that Dorothy had so overleaped the bounds of maidenly reserve and perilled her fortune in the quicksands of the law. And when Dorothy, in the still watches of the night, thus put Dorothy's self into the witness box, and her fluttering heart gave its blunt reply, Dorothy was fain to draw the coverlet over a winsome face and hide the crimson blushes e'en from the sightless eyes of night, and toss and turn upon her uneasy couch courting and yet dreading the sleep that brought dreams that should not be for maids uncourted and unwon.

And to nights thus harassed followed days embittered by her uncle's harsh, forbidding aloofness, and, to fill her cup to the brim, by the now unmistakable attentions of Nehemiah Wimpenny. That young ornament of the law had fully satisfied himself that Dorothy was worth the winning. He had even gone so far as to transfer his valued custom from the _Rose and Crown_, and Polly was left lamenting but sustaining her desertion with more philosophy than Ariadne or Dido.

"Good riddance of bad rubbish," was all she said, and forthwith reserved her sweetest smiles and most languishing glances for the village surgeon, who had long sighed in vain, eclipsed by the greater attractions or,--may it be suggested?--by the deeper purse of the village attorney.

Nehemiah was now a constant visitor at Wilberlee, and by Jabez Tinker was always welcomed with a warmth that increased when the manufacturer perceived that the attorney's visits were not purely professional. Jabez saw in his niece's marriage relief from a daily source of irritation. True, the day drew nigh when he must be prepared to produce and vouch his accounts as executor and trustee of his late brother. But Jabez flattered himself that if anyone could be counted on to keep Wilberlee out of Chancery it would be Nehemiah Wimpenny, if Nehemiah Wimpenny were also Dorothy's husband.

"Lawyers are fond of law, but it must be at somebody else's expense," he argued. "Wimpenny won't be such a fool as to share my cake with others, when sooner or later he can have it all himself."

But Nehemiah found the wooing of Dorothy up-hill work. The Holmfirth "Don Juan" was accustomed to the easy conquests of the bar-room and the side-wings of the Huddersfield Theatre. He found it difficult to teach his tongue the language to which it was a stranger, and after a painful hour or so spent in the parlour of Wilberlee in the attempt to interest or amuse the young heiress, his whole being cried out for the unrestrained freedom of Polly's conversation, and for the ready appreciation Polly had always vouchsafed to his jests and innuendos which even Nehemiah knew would ensure his prompt expulsion from Wilberlee, probably at the point of the owner's toe.

But as yet, at all events, he felt himself securely in Mr. Tinker's goodwill. He had even gone so far as to drop a not obscure hint as to the aspirations he cherished in what he was pleased to call his heart.

"Win this accursed law-suit for me," Jabez had said, "and we will talk about matters less important. Meanwhile, you had better make as sure of my niece's consent as you may of mine. Not that Dorothy would stay for that. I wish you joy of her, that's all. Women are kittle-cattle to shoe. I don't think you'll find my niece an exception to her sex."

But Nehemiah, despite the guardian's favour, confessed to himself that if he progressed at all in Dorothy's good graces, his progress was crab-wise--backwards. What _could_ he talk about? He feigned an interest in the sermons of the Rev. David Jones. But Dorothy yawned at the very mention of the minister's name. Then he affected an interest in her Sunday School class, but Dorothy said Sunday School classes were generally a combination of scholars who didn't want to learn and teachers who didn't know how to teach, and as she felt herself to be one of the latter class, she was determined to give her class up. Then the desperate lover essayed his powers at the retailing of local gossip, telling with unction how young D-- was supposed to be casting sheep's eyes at Nancy N--; how the plain daughter of the vicar's warden was shamelessly setting her cap at the new curate, and how the hue of Mrs. J--'s nose-end was erroneously attributed to poverty of blood.

In one topic only could he prevail on Dorothy to take an interest at all, and that was a topic on which Nehemiah was eloquent enough at first, but of which in time he became uncommonly shy,--the vexed question of water rights, with especial reference to the great case of "Pinder at the suit of Tinker."

"So you've lost your application for an _interim_ injunction?" Dorothy said demurely one night after tea, when her uncle had hurried off to a deacon's meeting, promising speedy return, and hospitably pressing his guest to stay for the substantial supper of cold meats and pastry with which our hardier fathers braved the terrors of nightmare and dyspepsia.

"Oh, that's nothing, Miss Dorothy," said Nehemiah jauntily, glad of a subject of conversation in which he flattered himself he could shine, "nothing at all, I can assure you."

"Then you expected to lose?"

"Well, not say expect, but fortune of war you know, fortune of war, glorious uncertainty, and all that, don'tcherknow."

"But you are certain to win in the end, or is there a glorious uncertainty about that?"

"Oh! yes, sure to win in the long run. Pinder can't stand the racket. Expected he'd have caved in long since. Can't understand it. Sykes must be risking more than I'd like to. Sticks like a leech at all points."

"There's an old saying, Mr. Wimpenny, that Tear'em's a good dog, but Holdfast's a better. Perhaps Mr. Sykes is one of your Holdfast breed."

"Ah! Ah! very good, indeed, Miss Tinker. Must remember that. But we shall shake him off yet, you bet."

"Thank you, I don't bet."

"Beg pardon, Miss Tinker, only a way of speaking, don'tcherknow. No offence," and Nehemiah told himself that Dorothy was a very difficult girl indeed.

"So you think you'll wear Mr. Pinder out. Do you mean his patience or his means?"

"Oh! patience is cheap enough. I dare say Pinder has plenty of that. It's the poor man's assets, don'tcherknow."

"I'm afraid that's often too true, Mr. Wimpenny."

"Well, I could have sworn it was about all the stock-in-trade Pinder had to break him in. But somebody's finding the money, or else Sykes is a bigger fool than I take him to be."

"Money, money, money, you men seem to talk and think of nothing but money."

"And they say, Miss Tinker, that women have a very pretty notion of spending what the men think and talk about."

"Well, I for one would rather talk of something else. You're sure, now, uncle is going to win this case?"

"Well, of course I _think_ so, or I shouldn't have advised the proceedings."

"But I suppose you advised the application for a what-do-you call it injunction. But you failed in that? Now I want you to tell me all about uncle's grievances against Mr. Pinder. It is so delightful to find a lawyer who can make things so beautifully simple to a poor ignoramus of a girl like me. I can see now why you have so many cases in the Courts."

"Oh! Dorothy, Dorothy."

And forthwith the willing victim of woman's guile talked at large of water encroachment, of unlawful ochre-water diverted from its natural course so that it passed by the head-goit of Co-op Mill, and only entered the river as it sped on to Wilberlee, to Mr. Tinker's great damage and detriment. Never was Nehemiah more eloquent, never had he so wrapt and intent a listener.

"She's just the woman for a lawyer's wife," thought Nehemiah, as he talked. "I'll practise my speeches on her."

"But, after all, it's no use wearying you with all these details, Miss Tinker. We shall never reach a final trial. Your uncle isn't the man to take a beating, and if we're trounced in one Court we shall go to another. Pinder can't stand the racket. I call it downright dishonest of him taking the savings of those deluded Co-opers, as they call them, and spending it on Sykes. Of course it's all the better for me. But the whole thing'll fizzle out in the Bankruptcy Court, and I take it there'll be no necessity to wait for the Court of Chancery's decision. Want of shekels will decide the question before we're much older, mark my words."

"How very charming!" quoth Dorothy. "Really, Mr. Wimpenny, I don't know how to thank you for making everything so clear to me. Now these water-foulings by Mr. Pinder, I suppose anyone can see them? You've interested me so much I've a good notion to turn myself into an amateur expert; if that isn't a contradiction in terms."

"Not more anomalous than a woman with sense," reflected Nehemiah. But he said with something of an effort.

"Well, the fact is Miss Tinker, there isn't very much to see. It's the eye of science, don'tcherknow, that we go by in these cases. The eye of science," he repeated, evidently pleased with that phrase.

"Well, anyway, I'll try what the eye of a woman can see some fine day. Perhaps I may find out something that has escaped all you clever men, and then you'll have to take me up to London as a witness, I hope."

It was, perhaps, in pursuance of this quite commendable resolve, that Dorothy one bright, cloudless day in August, clad in a close-fitting costume that permitted the graceful movement of her limbs without concealing the charming lines of her form came suddenly upon Tom Pinder in the neighbourhood of the Isle of Skye. Dorothy, who had, as far as the nature of the ground permitted, followed the course of the stream as it flowed from its source down the valley, was warm and flushed from the toilsome ascent, but the glow of health was on her cheek and its sparkle in her eye. Tom, on the contrary, was pale and careworn. Too sedulous devotion to his necessary work, too little rest of mind and body, but above all the constant anxiety and uncertainty for the future were telling their tale upon his robust, vigorous, elastic frame. But a glad light sprang to his eyes, and a happy smile to his lips as he met Dorothy's outstretched hand.

"You are quite a stranger, Mr. Pinder; it is ages since I caught more than a glimpse of you. Betty is quite fretting that you never go to see her now. Vows she is wearing to skin and bone; but it must be by the eye of faith she attests the process."

"No. I do not often get to Betty's kitchen now," said Tom, with something very like a sigh. "More's the pity; you see, I can't very well go openly, and you wouldn't have me go like a thief in the night."

"No, I would not. It's all this wretched law business, of course. But which way were you going, uphill, or down?"

"Bilberry! Well, there'll be a breeze from the water's face. But I think I ought to be turning homewards."

"May I accompany you, Miss Tinker? You pass near my own mill, you know."

"La! _my_ mill! how grand it sounds. I think I should like to say _my_ mill, and to feel that the hands were _my_ people. 'Tis a relic of feudalism, I suppose."

Tom raised his eyebrows almost imperceptibly. He had not credited Dorothy with much historical knowledge.

"Oh, you needn't look so superior, Mr. Wiseacre. I've read a book or two, though I don't teach classes on Sunday, like a naughty, defiant unbeliever, as some folk are. But there, you shan't accompany me homewards. That will perhaps teach you to veil your superiority."

"I assure you, Miss Tinker," began Tom, but boggled at his disclaimer, for he was a poor liar, and Dorothy had; divined his thoughts shrewdly.

"Instead," said Dorothy, enjoying his confusion, "instead I will go on with you to Bilberry Reservoir: I've as much right to the cool breeze from its surface as you have, and if you've no very great objection, Mr. Pinder, you may give me your arm up the hill."

Tom flushed to the brow and, feeling weak as water, hoped that Dorothy's ears were not as quick, as her eyes, for sure she would have heard the beating of his heart.

"Do you know, Miss Dorothy, I think it's the very first time I've been asked to give a lady my arm."

"Been asked?" said Dorothy, and part withdrew her little hand.

"Or given it, of course. I should never dream of giving it unasked."

"Oh!" said Dorothy, and her hand stole back again. "What, not to Lucy?"

"Oh, well, you know. Well, perhaps Lucy may have taken it sometimes when she felt overdone can't say for sure. One doesn't think of these things."

"Oh! don't they?" queried Dorothy, and her hand again made for retreat.

"Not with Lucy, I mean," added Tom.

"Oh!" and the hand now was restful.

They walked slowly towards the reservoir, leaving the highway, and treading on the soft close-cropped grass that fringed the moor. A grouse, occasionally, whirring low near the heather, cried its alarmed "Go-back, go-back," and the faint sound of the sportsman's gun was borne upon the wind. Silence fell upon the two, a silence that Tom knew not, nor cared to break.

"And what about Miss Baxter's apprentice?" at last spoke Dorothy, very softly.

Tom did not seem to hear. In truth he walked in a blissful trance. The question fell upon his ear, but the words, as words will when the mind is dreaming, tarried ere they reached his senses.

It seemed to Dorothy as if there had been a long gap in their conversation when he spoke.

"I beg your pardon, what did you say, Miss Dorothy?"

"I said, what about Miss Baxter's apprentice?" and there was no mistaking the withdraw of the hand now.

"Miss Baxter's apprentice!" said Tom, blankly. "Miss Baxter, the milliner, you mean."

"Of course I mean her _and_ her apprentice."

"Well, what about them?" asked Tom, "and how came we to be talking about them?"

"What's her name? I hope it's a pretty one."

"Why, Miss Baxter, to be sure."

"Stupid! I mean her apprentice. The one that wears green gloves. She's one of the teachers in our Sunday school. Oh! You know very well, sir."

"I suppose you mean Miss Pounder."

"What a horrid name: but what could you expect from a girl that wears green gloves. You really must buy her a pair of another colour. But there's no great change from Pounder to Pinder. That will be one comfort for her. But I meant her Christian name."

"Upon my word," said Tom, "I haven't an idea. It may be Jezebel for aught I know or care."

"But I thought...."

"Yes, you thought?"

"Oh! nothing," said Dorothy, "and here, thank goodness, we're at the reservoir at last. Oh! isn't the view down the valley just lovely?"

"It is," said Tom, but his eyes were on Dorothy's beaming face.

They lingered for some moments on the embankment of the vast sheet of water, each wrapt in thought. It was Dorothy who spoke.

"Wherever does all the water come from and how could they manage to trap it like this?"

"Oh, this reservoir is almost made by Nature. Yonder is Hoobrook Hill and there is Lum Bank. It needed but to throw a bank across the intervening space, and behold, the reservoir was made. The water comes from Holme Moss and the hills running up to Saddleworth. You would scarce think that this huge dam contains nigh a hundred million gallons of water, and that there is a pressure of several hundred thousand ton weight on the bank on which we stand."

"Oh! Tom! if it were to burst!"

Pinder looked very grave. "I have often thought of that. It would be a calamity such as daunts the heart but to think of. I come here often of a moonlight night when I have made up my books for the day. It is sweet to be alone with God, and thoughts that come from God and turn to Him. But there seems some weird fascination that draws my steps hitherwards. Had I ever contemplated suicide...."

Dorothy's hand sought his involuntarily "Never that Tom, never that."

"I should have thought there was an unseen hand beckoning, me hither. This great expanse of water, so still, when the clouds brood over it, so sullen, so seeming peaceful confined, so terrible for infinite woe if it should I o'erleap its barrier, has cast its spell over me."

"How gloomily you talk, Mr. Pinder!"

"It was 'Tom' but a moment gone."

"Well, Tom, then--as we are such old friends."

"Yes, Miss Dorothy, my heart misgives me about this slumbering giant. I doubt the strength of his chains. See here"--and he led toward the centre of the embankment. "Where we stand the surface is nearly a yard lower than the mouth of the culvert."

"What's the culvert for?" asked Dorothy.

"It is the safety valve of the reservoir."

"I'm afraid I'm rather stupid."

"You see, when the reservoir gets over full the excess should go down the culvert. As things are it would begin to overflow just where we stand. Indeed, more than once when the wind has set this way, I've seen the water trickle over here. Let that trickle be but continuous and a rill would become a gap, the gap a yawning aperture and this huge burthen of Nature's most innocent fluid would hurl itself down the valley, and what or who could withstand it!"

"But, Tom, whose duty is it to see to these things?"

"The Commissioners. Your uncle is one of them."

"Oh! I will speak to him, I promise you, and that right urgently. Would you, could you speak instead of me? Uncle is very wroth with me these days, and, oh! Tom, life is so dree at Wilberlee, I could find it in my heart at times to cry my very eyes out. And it's all your fault."

"_My_ fault!" he repeated.

"Yes, yours, Tom why couldn't you let uncle alone with your horrid law. You know he will have his own way, and, I think, your having been his apprentice makes it more galling."

"And a workhouse brat at that," said Tom, bitterly.

"Oh! never think of that, Tom. No one does. I don't, and I don't care if I do. It isn't that: but uncle cannot bear to be thwarted. Can't you let it drop?"

"Faith, I'd only be too glad. But it is Mr. Tinker that attacked me, and there is only one way to stop the law that I know of. Your uncle must give the word. But he wont, and I can't."

"Couldn't you just let him have his own way; it will please him, and it won't hurt you, nor your precious Co-op either."

"I don't know what you call hurting me: it will just ruin me, and what's worse it will ruin a dozen others or so, poor Ben Garside among them."

"But couldn't you go lower down the stream? Mr. Sy---, I mean somebody,... I mean" and here Dorothy lost herself altogether, and stood dumb-founded.

But Tom's mind had seized upon the first suggestion of her words and he was unconscious of her embarrassment.

"Yes, if some good fairy would transport Co-op Mill below Wilberlee, we might manage very well. Say we had that carpet we read of in the _Arabian Nights_. But what's the use of talking? I cannot stop the litigation, and your uncle wont."

"Couldn't you allow him the name of a victory if he promised to let things go on just as they were, and you had nothing to pay those greedy lawyers? I'm sure he is not an unreasonable man, only you've crossed him, somehow, Tom."

"I couldn't send him more water or power if I tried, I know that."

"And do you think he doesn't know it? Will you just go to him and humble yourself to him. I'll engage he shall meet you half-way."

"I'm shot if I do," said Tom stoutly, "he began it and he must end it."

"I thought you preached the gospel, Tom."

"Aye, aye, that's all very well; but there's nothing in the Bible about eating dirt, or letting a man make a door mat of you for him to wipe his feet on. Besides, there's others to think of, Miss Dorothy. There's Ben, for one, and all those whose money is in the concern. They'd never be willing."

"You shan't hide behind Ben, nor yet the others. You know very well they'll say aye to anything you said. I know I should, Tom."

Is there ought so subtle in this world as a woman's cozening tongue.

"Do promise, Tom," and here Dorothy seemed parlously near letting flow the tears she had threatened a while back; "for Ben's sake, for Lucy's sake."

"I cannot, Miss Dorothy, do not ask me. You do not know how hard it is for me to say you nay."

"For _my_ sake, Tom; because _I_ ask you. Oh! I am so unhappy amid it all. I know not what I say, nor ask."

"For your sake? Miss Dorothy, for your sake!"

"For mine, Tom," whispered Dorothy, with down cast eyes and burning cheek.

How Tom at that moment constrained himself, and withheld the words that leapt to his lips, he could never tell.

"For your sake then, Dorothy," was all he said.

She placed her hand within his arm, and in a silence that neither cared to break, they turned by mutual impulse to descend the hill homewards.