Author Unknown
It was market day in Fulford, and it was very hot, as the red-whiskered Mahoney, the rough "cross country" doctor, rode clattering in from the Barford road through a drove of panting sheep. His lank and jaded mare turned from habit into the yard of the old inn, and sniffed at the few drops of water at the bottom of a bucket before the door, while her master swung himself to the ground and entered the dim passage to the bar-parlor, tugging his stiff mustache clear of his mouth.
"Oh, now, be quiet, me darlin'! A big drink—I'm as dry as a salted cod."
The farmers and dealers stopped their talk and turned on their elbows. He nodded to them, took a long pull at the ale, and then took a long breath.
"Weel, what be news, doctor?" asked Long Ribston. Doctor Mahoney was known to be the greatest gossip on the countryside.
"Be auld Kitty dead yet?" asked the old Bidker; "she been a lang time aboot it."
"Yes, me old Tom; but not so long as ye think. She died a fortnight ago. Everybody knows, but old sinners like you that niver come into town but to the monthly cattle. Faix, now, there'll be a fine rumpus and a pretty bit o' law about the old lady's will. I walked up the hill wid Grewelthorpe—"
"Which?"
"Sure, big John o' the mill. We were speakin'—By the Lord! there he is in the yard—but ye'd see this blessed day some fun wid him and his brother, the agent. He's as mad as the divil wid him and the will."
The white-haired old man in the corner (the superannuated landlord), who had been muttering to himself "Big John—big John," now rose, and shuffled up to Mahoney, and peering in his face, said querulously, "Gearge at top o' toon is a deal foiner man, lat me tell ye. Au' Grewelthorpes," continued he, getting warmer and clutching the breast of the doctor's coat, "what doest thou knaw about them? They be as strange to thee as frummity. Gossip as thoo likes about too an'd wives an' thoo dawgs, but leave talk o' Grewelthorpes to them as knaws them."
"All right, old cock. I know the Grewelthorpe story is yours—all your own. Don't be afraid, I won't steal it."
"Sh! sh!" sounded from this side and that. "Here he be."
The patriarch shuffled back to his chair; the doctor sat on the table and looked to the buckle of his spur-strap; and the rest pursed up their lips, laid their arms on the table and winked. The door had opened, while a voice in the passage said, "Yes, lass; bring me a gill."
"O' ale, sir?"
"Ale? No! Brandy."
The occupants of the room lifted their eyebrows and nodded to each other. A tall, burly man entered, looking as white and dusty as a barn owl, except that his whiskers were black and crisp.
"Here ye be a," said he, taking a seat. The doctor gave a light nod of recognition, while the patriarch in the corner fussily filled his long pipe and scratched a match. The dull eyes around observed these movements as if they had never seen the like before. There was an embarrassed silence, broken only by the distracted bumping and buzzing of a bluebottle on the window pane, which the newcomer watched with apparent interest. His brandy was brought in a little pewter measure. He poured out a glassful and drank it off, and then turned to his neighbor.
"An' what be news goin'?"
"Nou't," said old Bidker promptly, from the other side of the table, "'cept aboot thoo."
"Ye say so?"
There was no change in his look or tone.
But Doctor Mahoney knew how Bidker delighted to engender strife, so he turned at once. "Fact is, John, I just told them as how ye were mad aboot something in your aunt's will; I didn't know what, but—"
"Knaw? Cod! How should ye knaw?" He poured out and drank the rest of his brandy. "The old lady may ha' left him the house and me the land—"
"But," cried the patriarch, "she wur fonder o' thoo than o' Gearge."
"—or," continued Grewelthorpe, without heeding him, "she may, peradventure, as parson says, ha' left me the house and him the land."
"Be that what she's done?" asked the patriarch eagerly.
Grewelthorpe turned and looked at him a moment, and then said sententiously, "Mousetraps, old Cocker. Maybe he'll—"
A face darkened the little window, peering in. It was his—the brother's.
"D—nation!" slowly growled John, staring at the window. "That's jus' how he's aye a-interruptin' me now. But I done him out a' along, and I'll do'm out again!"
He rose suddenly, and went as if to intercept his brother. But they heard him stop at the bar and call for more brandy. They all agreed with Bidker that he was "going it," and that he must have been going it for some days.
"He'll be havin' the divils," said Long Ribston.
"Not he," said Mahoney, with a skilled, superior air, to which all deferred with a wistful, interrogative "No?"
The Doctor went out. In a moment he put his head in at the door again—"He's at it."
At what? They all pushed and stumbled into the street; even the patriarch, after a little hesitation, put down his pipe and shuffled after them.
The marketplace (which was no more than a portion of the street widened on one side by the retreat of a row of well-to-do houses up a sloping bank) was filled with men and beasts. The beasts were penned; sheep and pigs on the shop side and the cattle on the bank. The men usually talked and laughed, and felt handfuls of grain in groups, stood contemplative over a store pig, or gathered about Pottlethwaite, the auctioneer's little pulpit at the top of the bank, as much to hear his jokes as to make a bid; while the sharp horse dealers from Barford, with loud tones and cracking whips, trotted wild little nags of ponies up and down the street. But now sheep and cattle lay unheeded in the heat, panting and ruminant; every man was pushing toward the auctioneer; shopkeepers and customers crowded together to their doors; and even Mr. Parr, the vicar from Easterwyke, lingered on the grocer's step.
"Cod," said Bidker, "it be just like a preachin';" thinking, no doubt, of what he had seen in Methodist days.
Not a voice was heard but that of Pottlethwaite, which sounded loud and clear, "Seventeen; seventeen-ten; eighteen." The Grewelthorpe brothers were bidding against each other for a roan heifer. The auctioneer was very serious; the bidders did not need the spur of his wit—their mutual hate urged them on. Many pushed and pressed to get a sight of the brothers' faces. But there was little to be seen in them. A resolute lip, an eye fixed on the auctioneer, and a light nod first from the one and then from the other. Up and up went the bidding, till spectators began to stare at each other and to raise their eyebrows. Every one knew the value of the heifer had long been passed; it was plainly now a foolish, relentless duel in which the heifer was forgotten and hatred only remained.
"Twenty-seven; twenty-seven-ten; twenty-eight;" the eye of the town brother dropped a moment—"goin' at twenty-eight"—turned sideways it caught the flash of triumph in the country brother's eye and the satisfied sneer on his lip, and it again looked resolutely at Pottlethwaite. "Twenty-eight-ten," said Pottlethwaite. A nod from the other; "twenty-nine; twenty-nine-ten; thirty."
The excitement grew intense. The brothers knew they were merely throwing their money away; but no, neither would yield. In the tension of their passion they gradually turned to face each other. The lips were firmly set, the eyes fixed and fiery, as if the men were engaged in a belt-to-belt fight with knives. Every light nod the one cast at the other was a fierce stab. The passion of it began to glow in the bosoms and in the eyes of the crowd, and Pottlethwaite showed signs of anxiety and hesitation.
"Thirty-nine; thirty-nine-ten; forty; going at forty; any advance upon forty—"
"D— you!" cried the town brother, and fell down in a fit.
They gathered round to recover him. The victorious brother looked for a moment as if stung, and then turned away, muttering, "Done him out again. I swore I'd do it, and I done it."
In this bitter fraternal feud the sympathies of most had hitherto been, for no particular reason, with the bluff, obstinate miller, rather than with the retiring and reserved corn factor and agent. They had observed with satisfaction, and pointed out to wondering strangers, how the town brother would give the big miller the wall whenever they passed in the street; how he would submit to be outbidden at sales, outdone in subscriptions, outvoted in parish meetings, though they could account for their partisanship no better than by insisting that "the agent looked such a poor creature." But after this extraordinary exhibition of passion over the sale of the heifer, and the apparent indifference of the miller as to his brother's condition, a change of look and tone came over the crowd. They followed the miller's retreating figure with narrow eyes and something like repulsion. Another degree of heat added to their feelings would have made them hiss and hoot him. They turned to regard the agent, who was now sitting up, with a kind of pity.
"An' they wur once sae thick thegither!" said Long Ribston, looking from one brother to the other, striding off with his hand under his coat tail "Weel, theae's nou't sae queer as folks!"
"He dean't look ower strong," said Bidker, with his eye on the agent, now being led into the chemist's. "It be gey cruel o' that big John to harry and drive him as he do."
This was seized and assented to on all sides as the expression of the prevalent feeling. "He carry it too far now." "He be fair mad to run price up and throw money away like that." "They do say (speaking low) as how he be takin' t' drink." "Ah, it be time they made quarrel up, whativer it wur aboot. It been goin on for some years now, bain't it, Cocker?"
"Some year?" said old Cocker, chirruping into his favorite theme of the mysterious origin of the Grewelthorpe feud, and attracting about him a good many from Pottlethwaite's own audience. "It be nigh sivin year—sivin year came Michaelmas—sin' John buried his wife. Day o' funeral they were t' best friends, standin' by t' grave wi' fine new black coats on an' white handkerchiefs in their een; for, ye see, Gearge wur cruel fond o' t' neat, long-waisted Peggy afore John married her. Ay, ay; best friends day o'funeral. Next marnin' John walks into parlor at t' inn to ha'e a drink, and a little after in comes Gearge. They wur by theirsens, and I wur thinkin' o' goin' in to keep 'em company, when—ouf!—a hullabaloo that made us a' jump!—there wur cursin' and bangin' ower chairs and smashin' o' glass; an' I opens t' door an' there stands Gearge wipin' tipple frae his face and neck an' John in a white rage, wi' glass in his hand, like this, to thraw. 'What be up?' I says. 'Nou't,' says they. An' Gearge gang oot past me and says at bar, 'There's a glass broke. I'll pay for it.' (An'—he! he!—has paid for't.) An'—"
"An' naebody knaws yet," put in some one of those who had heard the story before, "what it wur aboot."
Cocker looked at the man, and frowned at his interruption of the steady flow of his narrative. "Naebody," said he, "unless it be thoo."
There threatened to be high words between the two, but the old storyteller was moved off home by his friends. There was a large company in the parlor talking all at once, but not quite in unison, about the sensational auction. All were agreed that the feud of the brothers had distinguished and disgraced Fulford long enough. "Why, next thing they'll be killin' t'une anither!' The cause of the quarrel should be ascertained, and the men brought to shake hands over it. But how? and by whom? Cocker shook his head; they had always been "cruel, passionate and obstinate lads."
Many friends had tried to bring them together. Even the parson had done his best—and his worst. He had, so far as he could, excommunicated them. He had preached so directly at them that the eyes of a full, plebeian evening congregation were incontinently turned on the two stiff-necked, stern-eyed men who sat on either side the aisle, each in his place as churchwarden; and when they rose to pass round the plates for the collection, he had addressed them by name, and ordered them to desist from the service of the Lord unless they were ready to forgive and embrace each other, upon which, without hesitation and without a word, they had surrendered the plates and walked out. He had forbidden their appearance at the sacramental table, and their holding any office in connection with the church, so that for a long time the church had ceased to know or see them.
No; how or by whom the feud was to be stopped no one could say; and old Cocker went back to his chair and his pipe in the corner.
But Fate had already begun to prepare the end of the feud in a way quite her own, by means which showed she understood the lives and tempers of men rather better than the parson.
That evening George Grewelthorpe, the town brother, sat in the dusky shadows of the little bar parlor with Cocker,
"I have, Cocker; you know I have," he was saying in a voice of remonstrance, "tried to let it drop. But he wean't. An' see what a fool he do make me. But I'll be even with him now."
"Um—m," murmured Cocker. "But it wur thysen, Gearge, played fool first—that I knaw. Now, look ye here; canstna get at him thro' his lass, Kitty? Thou wert aye fond o' her mother, wertna?"
"Now, Cocker, you knaw better than tell me to try thro' t' lass. You knaw he was aye jealous o' me."
"But it werena aboot that ye fell out—eh?"
George looked full at him.
"Thoo'rt tryin' to draw me, Cocker." After a pause: "If he'd just drop it; but he wean't. An' I bain't goin' beggin' and holdin' oot my hand to him—after he mak d—n fool of me all aboot!" He was silent.
There was a pause, during which Cocker felt about on the table, and got up and felt on the mantelshelf for a match. Having found one he returned to his seat. He scratched the light and held it up a moment to peer under at his companion, who sat stern and angry, with his eyes averted, nervously plucking at his whiskers. Cocker lit his pipe and continued:
"John, thoo see, be gey different frae thoo in soom ways. When thoo tak' to thinkin' on't, it mak's thoo look ill and sort o' d—d drunk like. But he—he allus look as if 'twere his meat and drink, and as if he throve on't uncommon weel. Weel, thou see, he has nou't else to think on scarce, as thoo has; so oot in field, or in mill wi' hoppers clatterin' and dust flyin', he nurse it, and nurse it, and keep thought o't fair coddled aboot's heart. But, for a', he can do non't wi' 't onless thoo cross and center him."
"He make me; and so does she—Aunt Kitty, I mean. The last thing she do in her will was to try and make fool of me. But she didn't know she gave me such fine chance to pay off scores wi' John!"
"Hump! What is this? I ask John, and he only say, 'Mousetraps, old Cocker.' Maybe, thoo'll say, 'Toasted cheese, old Cocker.'"
"Oh, it. dean't matter., Everybody'll knaw very soon; for it'll be up in Court and in newspapers; an' I think I'll get it. She put into her will, just for flout at me, that John was to hav' a' proputty in Fulford parish, and that I was to ha' a' in Thexton parish. Now thoo knaws it wur joke that Aunt Kitty had just enough land in Thexton—a bit corner at bottom o' field—as much as would mak' a grave."
"He! he!" Cocker could not help laughing.
"Weel, weel, I'll laugh too by-'m-bye. Now, ye think! I goes to lawyer Norton to arrange aboot gettin' ower my little bit land—"
"He! he!"
"When what do we find? The real old original boundary o' parish comes up by drain, which was oust a bit brook, and goes thro' end o' t' house! So all John has be three-quarters o' house, an' a bit o' back yard!"
"Whew! Thoo say so!"
Some months after, the case came on in a London Court. Of course all Fulford and the neighborhood were agog with speculation as to the result and cost of the trial; and there were a good many of the frivolous sort who had laid wagers on the event. So, one wintry forenoon, when old Cocker was seen bare-headed and bespectacled, trailing an open newspaper, and shuffling across the street to the house of his friend, the officer of excise, the word flew round, and before he had climbed the bank, he was prounced upon by the grocer and the baker, followed by Miss Hicks, the milliner (commonly reputed to have her maiden eye on one of the brothers), who, in her haste, had forgotten to put off her spectacles and to put on her cap straight. Then up came the butcher, and out came the excise man, and then another and another, each one quicker and more eager than the last (which is the law of accretion among human and other particles), till quite a crowd had gathered. But, bless you! no one need have hurried, for every one "knew" the case would have gone so. How could it help it? The will ran so and so and the parish boundary ran so; it was clear. A man with half an eye, old Cocker said, could see that, much more than a judge and a jury. "An' they two born idiots gone an' mayhap spent hundreds o' pounds on settlin' what might ha' been settled ower a twopenny pot o' ale!"
"An' it goes out o' t' town!" exclaimed the grocer.
"Except what the witnesses get," said the excise man.
It proved to be a terrible blow to John Grewelthorpe, the miller. He was for the first time "done out" by his brother; he was mulcted in heavy costs, and he was left in possession of the most ridiculous fragment of property man ever inherited—three-quarters of a house, and a small triangular section of back yard. If all the property had been won from him—that he could have endured; the loss would have been serious, but people would have regarded it seriously. As it was, he felt that every one laughed at him, and that every one had a right to laugh. His brother sent his lawyer with a kindly-meant offer to surrender the right the law allowed him to a part of the house, but the lawyer came back with a bouncing flea in his ear.
"Noo," said the miller, "just tell Gearge, you, if he send onybody here wi'ou't, or come himsen, I'll stick him head first i' that sweet duck-dabble! Dom his favors! Dost knaw he began wi' doin' me a favor? Dom! Nae mair! Law gi'es him quarter o' hoose, an' quarter o' hoose he'll ha'e! No, sir, thoo can wag."
The miller's answer of course soon got noised abroad, and it became a question of great interest at gossiping corners, and in the tap-room and bar of the old inn, how the division of the house was to be effected.
"Run up the petition wall," said old Cocker; "that's w a' they'll do."
"Faix !" cried Dr. Mahoney, "I'd manage aisier than that. Let it out in rooms to tenants, and divide the rints."
"Ah well," said the excise man, "they might just as easy let it to one tenant and divide the one rent."
"Yes, of course," said the Irishman, "of course. It comes to the same."
But one day Fulford became aware of the curious fact that scaffolding was being put up about one end of the house—"the Gearge end," as it was called. On closer inspection it was observed that a line of whitewash had been drawn obliquely across the roof and straight down the wall. The very curious went to question the workmen, and got for an answer that it "warn t to be told; but" (with a sly twinkle), "this bit be comin' down." People watched the work of demolition, how carefully it was conducted; the slates taken from the roof whole, and the brick cleared of mortar and piled. They looked at each other and laughed; no one had expected such a solution of the difficulty as this.
"They tell ye what," said old Cocker, in confidence to the exciseman, "that John be dom'd clever, malicious divil!"
It may be guessed that George was enraged at getting his quarter of the house handed over to him in this useless, broken shape. But he said nothing—at least not in public—and at home he had none but a deaf, old housekeeper to talk to. Perhaps he was the more inclined to be silent because he had already a scheme of retaliation, which threatened to be so serious in its consequences to his brother, that he hesitated to carry it into execution till he was stung to it by this new instance of implacable brotherly malice. On one piece of ground which his Aunt Kitty had by will unwittingly assigned to him, and on which he had for some years tried, with little success, to produce cabbages, he determined to build a steam mill. He knew his purpose was fratricide, and he feared others would see it was, and would cry "Shame!" upon him. So he tried to cover it, for decency sake, with talk about the necessity, in these pushing times, when business had so much increased, of a town like Fulford bestirring itself to supply all the wants of the neighborhood; it was notorious that the mills of Barford did much of the grinding of the Fulford district—why should this be? By a lucky chance he possessed a piece of worthless ground; he would risk the building of a mill for the good of the community, But George need not have excused his action so elaborately. He took very few in by his talk, and he might have known that friends and neighbors do not severely condemn a questionable act when they expect to profit by it.
The mill was built, and became very popular. Steam power was then in its youth (at any rate, in that district), and was believed to be capable of the greatest marvels of work I at the smallest possible expense. The belief, indeed, still obtained credence among the older and the more ignorant folk that it was a manifestation of the Evil One.
"But if it be divil," said old Bidker, "as soom say, it will be very good divil; eh Cocker?"
Carts and waggons of grain from the uplands, instead of rattling and lumbering on to Barford, now turned to Fulford, and Miller John had the chagrin of seeing them slowly come down the hill, tearing open one side of the road with their clumsy skid pans, and dash past him with fierce cracking of whips and wild "Woahoos," to take the opposite slope, up which the great broad-hoofed horses panted and scraped on their way to his brother's. If anyone came upon him at such a time, and ventured to condole with him on that "divlish trick of Gearge," he would face him with "Folk'll soon find difference atween divil's steam an' God's watter, and till that time God almighty can look aifter's ain watter, an' I can look aifter mysen," and then he would turn sharply off and enter his mill.
Big John's faith that the popularity of steam was a mere passing whim was severely tried. All that year, even right through the busy grinding months that follow on an abundant harvest, team after team of toiling horses dragged their rich load of wheat, of barley, or of pulse through the hollow past the old water-mill on to the town, and drew up under Aunt Kitty's house, which still stood as the workmen had left it, with one end completely open to wind and weather, a woeful witness to the foolish strife and spite of kindred. It became a general belief in the town and among the farmers that the occupation of big John and his ancestral water-mill was gone. There was no unseemly rejoicing over the fate of the miller and his mill; on the contrary, there was much expression of sorrow, of a calm and unproductive sort. A few, indeed, who did not like to see an old friend and neighbor and an old institution grow mouldy and wass, without an effort to save them, took John an occasional hurried job or two—a sack of oats to hash for next day's provender, or a bushel of wheat to grind for Friday's baking. But the work was done so badly—"The grit and dirt in't," said one, "be just as if 'twere swept off barn floor"—and customers were received so grumpily—"Why," he asked them, "didna ye tak' this where ye took t' rest?"—that they were not tempted to return to him. And their consciences were the more at ease in forsaking him, in the knowledge that he had curtly refused one or two "little jobs," saying that he could get plenty to do without such dirty bits, and in the comforting belief that since he said so it must be true. And certainly in this belief they were sustained by the evidence of their own eyes and ears. Whenever they passed the water was rushing and splashing, the wheel turning and dripping, and the hoppers clattering, just as in the busy old days. To shrewd and observant persons (which of course the men and women about Fulford were) this was all very puzzling, for no inquiry could discover anyone who empolyed John the Miller. Some, however, were found, who had met him, sometimes early, sometimes late of a night, going or returning on the Barford road, driving the one lean horse left to him, with a cart-load of full sacks.
"Good night, John," they had said, "Thoor t busy at mill, then, late and early."
"Business must be done, sirs," he had answered.
If any one pressed a question, where he was taking his sacks to or bringing them from, he would say, finger on nose, " Government contract."
For want of another, this explanation of his continued activity was generally accepted, though it did seem singular that the Government should come out of its way to employ big John. The officer of excise declared, if it was so, it must be a job; big John must have somehow got at their member, Sir Thomas. The schoolmaster and the literary tailor (who had both tried to "get at" Sir Thomas and had failed) exclaimed it was "scandalous;" and even the successful George, who had been having some qualms of conscience for having stripped his brother of business, again hardened his heart against him.
But, job or no job, either the Government contract was very unprofitable, or John was become a great miser. He contrived to work the mill without any assistance; he even allowed his daughter Kitty to go as maid into Squire Harding's family (some were "particularly" told he insisted on her going); his jolly figure shrank to a gaunt skeleton; his trousers attracted passing notice, from the transparent tenuity of one part, and the thick, clumsy patching of another; and whenever he turned up in public (which now was seldom) his manner was truculent and suspicious. From all which (since it could not be that the Government paid him) it was readily concluded John was a "miserable hunks." There was another thing which lent color to this view: he never now tried to "do out" his brother at sales; when he appeared at them he would fidget here and there on the outskirts of the crowd, feeling and fumbling in his pockets, and if Pottlethwalite appealed to him for a bid, he would seem to wake up and stand irresolute a moment, and then would shake his head and stride away.
"He got some sense at last," said old Cocker. "We wean't throw away nae mair brass."
Yet his balance at the bank (as the clerk let friends know in confidence) did not increase; on the contrary, it was gradually growing less. But that was at once taken as excellent evidence of the miserly instinct working in him, which craves and lusts for the nightly finger of the precious gold; he was of course hording away his large savings somewhere about the mill, and he intended, bit by bit, to withdraw what the bank held of his, and add it to the chinking, shining pile.
But that Government contract was surely an unusually long one. Winter had softened into spring, spring had brightened and settled into summer, and summer deepened and swelled into autumn, and still the gaunt figure of John, with his gaunt horse and loaded cart, was met of an evening coming and going on the Barford road; still, whenever you might pass the mill water rushed and splashed, the wheel turned and dripped, and the hoppers clattered. The door, indeed, was never seen open now, not even its upper half, in the old sociable way, and no one would think of putting his nose into the miser's den and asking how he was. It is not to be wondered at that a feeling of something mysterious in all this should arise and spread. Sober, canny men began to shake their heads and purse their lips when talking of big John. It was agreed that it was not to the credit of an honest, respectable township like Fulford that John should be allowed to continue unquestioned his "secret, nefarious traffic." (These last were the words of the tailor with a taste for literature.)
"Ah, now, be aisy," said Dr. Mahoney one night, as the miller was being thus discussed in the old inn parlor—"be aisy. The old John's doing nothing wrong, I'll be bound. Oh, yes, it's true he shuts himself up. Now, now! because a man's lost his flesh don't ye go for to take his skin!"
When the doctor had gone out, switching his boot with his riding whip, much disgust was expressed at his defence of "'t au'd miser." Some one on the back bench spoke up, and said he knew why "t' doctor be so found o' au'd John." Being pressed for an explanuation, he said, "Doctor be sweet on t' lass, Ah, but I seen um! an' t' lass'll ha've all th' au'd man's brass as he hides away in stockings an' rat-holes."
"Ah, be that it?" The wise topers at once found this an explanation of a great deal, and made it an incentive to action. For might it not well be that Mahoney was in the miller's secrets, and wan sharing, eh ? Ecod! why should they not go down to the mill one night, while the miller was out on the Barford road, and enter and see what game he was up to? "And hunt out a rat or two from the holes," suggested one.
"Cod, yes!"
Now it chanced that the doctor, on leaving the parlor had turned into the bar—"just a hot whisky, me darlin', wid a bit of lemon"—and being suspicious that the topers might talk of him when he was gone, had, with a wink to the landlady, applied his ear to a convenient hole in the pine-board partition from which a knot had been pupshed. Of course he heard all that passed.
"Just sayin' the plisantest thing about your humble servant," he whispered to the landlady. "But, don't tell 'em I heard;" and with that he swallowed his whisky, and went off sucking the "bit o' lemon."
It was quite true he was in love with the trim little Kitty. Even while she was a thin, pale-faced girl, slaving about her father's house, he had lingered to talk with her. But after she had been some months in Squire Harding's house he had met her, and stared, blushed, and instantly taken fire with love. The poorly-dressed slip of a girl, who had left the mill, was hardly recognizable in this fresh, graceful young woman. So now he was very much alarmed by what he had overheard in the inn, not only on account of his sweetheart's father, but on his own. These valiant topers might set out on their expedition the very next night—drunk probably—to hunt a rat or two! He knew what that meant, and he feared: for, like every right-minded young man who has his way to make in the world, while he loved his "sweet Kitty so dearly, so dearly," he by no means despised her probable dowry, which he, like every one else, believed to be bestowed in "stockings and rate holes." Mahoney's medical practice made him quick to act in emergency. He stood a moment at the gateway of the inn, and looked up and down the street. The grocer was puttiing up his shutters; it was half past seven, it would be dark in less than two hours. Yes, he could do it. He ran up the yard.
"Jim! Jim! Oh! there you are. Get the mare out. No no; she's tired, the other."
"Saddle, sir?"
"No, beggar, no—of course not. The gig."
In twenty minutes he was at Squire Harding's side door. A quarter of an hour later he was dashing along with Kitty by his side, by the cross roads to the mill.
The doctor, after tying up the horse to the dusky yew, paused and looked at Kitty. He had not told her that half his purpose in coming to the mill was to ask her father's sanction to their engagement, and now the air of the place seemed to damp his ardor. The only sound was the monotonous spill of the "wastewater." The great wheel looked sodden and mouldy. The cart stood propped in the tumble-down shed. It was full of sacks: had the miller just returned, or was he just about to set out? They went to the house door, and tried it, and knocked. No answer. They went to the mill door; it was also locked, and no sound came in reply to repeated knocking. Ah, the little shutter window was unfasted; should he, Mahoney asked, enter that way and then open the door for Kitty? Perhaps something had happened to her father. In any case both were curious to see what it was the mill had been so busy with for months. Soon they were both in the mill. They looked about them in the dim light. Strange! A mere damp fustiness of smell; none of that warm fragrant odour of flour and meal in which mills are embalmed. Mahoney pushed open the shutters all round. . . Not a single sack; not a grain of wheat; not even a floury festoon of dust on wall or roof! They looked at each other in silent amazement; not a rat squeaked; the floor, the platforms, the hoppers were swept utterly empty and bare. A common impulse sent them out to look into the sacks in the cart. . . . Filled with sweepings, decaying ropes and cord, musty hay and straw, everything! They did not need to speak. It was plain to both that during all these months the old mill had been busily grinding nothing!
Through the mill they made their way into the house. In the kitchen they found the miller—he that had been called "Big John"—sitting in an armchair before a spark of fire, looking like an unwinking, ghastly Death. At sight of the two, a warm flush suffused he cadaverous face, and burned into his eyes. He tried to stand up, but he sank back into his chair again. He had always been a stern, undemonstrative father, and his daughter was always afraid to show any emotion; but his sad condition now so moved her she could not restrain herself. She threw herself on her knees before him, and wept and sobbed with her face in his lap. He looked this way and that for a moment, and his stubby chin began to work strangely. At length he looked suddenly at Mahoney:
"Weel—I s'pose thoo'st found a' oot in there?" motioning with his head toward the mill. "Weel, weel. It be a' up, eh! Or," again flushing and sitting up, "be ye come to say folk got back to right mind?—eh? Nae mair divil's steam, eh? Cod! I'll do that Gearge oof yet! Dom him!"
But the excitement was too much for him. He sank back pale and faint. He crossed and pressed his arms over his stomach, closed his eyes and uttered a faint moan. Mahoney guessed what this was—starvation. Till now he stood in utter blank surprise. Now he recovered his wits. He spoke to Kitty and sent her to get a light and to find what food there was, made John drink some brandy from the flask which he always carried, and felt and counted his pulse. He tried to persuade him to let them help him to bed, but "No," said John, "I be a' right. I'll bide here."
Kitty brought a piece of resiny wood and lit it, whispering there was neither candle nor coal, crust nor scrap, to be found any where.
In a minute or two Mahoney was driving into the town for food, in grave doubt whether it would be of any use. It suddenly occured to him to stop at the house of the other Grewelthorpe; he ought to know of his brother's condition. George Grewelthorpe, when he heard, was overcome with consternation and remorse, called himself a fool for ever having believed in such a thing as a government contract, and begged to be taken up to his brother.
"It been a' my fault from t' first, Doctor! I mun gan to him."
With such things as were necessary they returned to the mill. Kitty met them at the door in great distress; her father's behaviour was so unlike what she had ever known it before; he had been calling her by honeyed names. "And, oh, what do you think he's been living on all this time?—rats! ugh!" They entered the kitchen. John looked up sharply. "You've been giving him too much of the brandy," said Mahoney to Kitty. At the sight of his brother he seemed to swell and bristle with the old malice and obstinacy.
"No, no," said he, trying to rise; "I beart done oot yet!"
"John," said his brother in a choking voice, holding out his hand.
"Gearge?" said he, looking at the extended hand a moment, and then grasping it and sitting down. The hands kept pressing each other with a perceptible vibration.
"Has left of steam then?" asked John.
"Divil tak' steam!"
"Ah, I thought so," said John, with a smile in which he almost fainted away again. In a little time some chicken-broth was ready for him. While taking it he kept glancing furtively at his brother, and letting something of an angry cloud regather about his face.
"Gearge,"said he at length, pressing his brother's hand again, "I warn't now—eh?, wuz I?"
"What?"
"Thoo knows; drunk the even' o' her funeral—eh?"
"N—no, John; no."
Thus the Grewelthorpe feud ended. Next day a waggon from the steam mill brought something for the empty hoppers of the old mill to clatter about, and next week it was announced that the mills would be worked in concert by the firm of "Grewelthorpe Brothers."
"Oh, now, be quiet, me darlin'! A big drink—I'm as dry as a salted cod."
The farmers and dealers stopped their talk and turned on their elbows. He nodded to them, took a long pull at the ale, and then took a long breath.
"Weel, what be news, doctor?" asked Long Ribston. Doctor Mahoney was known to be the greatest gossip on the countryside.
"Be auld Kitty dead yet?" asked the old Bidker; "she been a lang time aboot it."
"Yes, me old Tom; but not so long as ye think. She died a fortnight ago. Everybody knows, but old sinners like you that niver come into town but to the monthly cattle. Faix, now, there'll be a fine rumpus and a pretty bit o' law about the old lady's will. I walked up the hill wid Grewelthorpe—"
"Which?"
"Sure, big John o' the mill. We were speakin'—By the Lord! there he is in the yard—but ye'd see this blessed day some fun wid him and his brother, the agent. He's as mad as the divil wid him and the will."
The white-haired old man in the corner (the superannuated landlord), who had been muttering to himself "Big John—big John," now rose, and shuffled up to Mahoney, and peering in his face, said querulously, "Gearge at top o' toon is a deal foiner man, lat me tell ye. Au' Grewelthorpes," continued he, getting warmer and clutching the breast of the doctor's coat, "what doest thou knaw about them? They be as strange to thee as frummity. Gossip as thoo likes about too an'd wives an' thoo dawgs, but leave talk o' Grewelthorpes to them as knaws them."
"All right, old cock. I know the Grewelthorpe story is yours—all your own. Don't be afraid, I won't steal it."
"Sh! sh!" sounded from this side and that. "Here he be."
The patriarch shuffled back to his chair; the doctor sat on the table and looked to the buckle of his spur-strap; and the rest pursed up their lips, laid their arms on the table and winked. The door had opened, while a voice in the passage said, "Yes, lass; bring me a gill."
"O' ale, sir?"
"Ale? No! Brandy."
The occupants of the room lifted their eyebrows and nodded to each other. A tall, burly man entered, looking as white and dusty as a barn owl, except that his whiskers were black and crisp.
"Here ye be a," said he, taking a seat. The doctor gave a light nod of recognition, while the patriarch in the corner fussily filled his long pipe and scratched a match. The dull eyes around observed these movements as if they had never seen the like before. There was an embarrassed silence, broken only by the distracted bumping and buzzing of a bluebottle on the window pane, which the newcomer watched with apparent interest. His brandy was brought in a little pewter measure. He poured out a glassful and drank it off, and then turned to his neighbor.
"An' what be news goin'?"
"Nou't," said old Bidker promptly, from the other side of the table, "'cept aboot thoo."
"Ye say so?"
There was no change in his look or tone.
But Doctor Mahoney knew how Bidker delighted to engender strife, so he turned at once. "Fact is, John, I just told them as how ye were mad aboot something in your aunt's will; I didn't know what, but—"
"Knaw? Cod! How should ye knaw?" He poured out and drank the rest of his brandy. "The old lady may ha' left him the house and me the land—"
"But," cried the patriarch, "she wur fonder o' thoo than o' Gearge."
"—or," continued Grewelthorpe, without heeding him, "she may, peradventure, as parson says, ha' left me the house and him the land."
"Be that what she's done?" asked the patriarch eagerly.
Grewelthorpe turned and looked at him a moment, and then said sententiously, "Mousetraps, old Cocker. Maybe he'll—"
A face darkened the little window, peering in. It was his—the brother's.
"D—nation!" slowly growled John, staring at the window. "That's jus' how he's aye a-interruptin' me now. But I done him out a' along, and I'll do'm out again!"
He rose suddenly, and went as if to intercept his brother. But they heard him stop at the bar and call for more brandy. They all agreed with Bidker that he was "going it," and that he must have been going it for some days.
"He'll be havin' the divils," said Long Ribston.
"Not he," said Mahoney, with a skilled, superior air, to which all deferred with a wistful, interrogative "No?"
The Doctor went out. In a moment he put his head in at the door again—"He's at it."
At what? They all pushed and stumbled into the street; even the patriarch, after a little hesitation, put down his pipe and shuffled after them.
The marketplace (which was no more than a portion of the street widened on one side by the retreat of a row of well-to-do houses up a sloping bank) was filled with men and beasts. The beasts were penned; sheep and pigs on the shop side and the cattle on the bank. The men usually talked and laughed, and felt handfuls of grain in groups, stood contemplative over a store pig, or gathered about Pottlethwaite, the auctioneer's little pulpit at the top of the bank, as much to hear his jokes as to make a bid; while the sharp horse dealers from Barford, with loud tones and cracking whips, trotted wild little nags of ponies up and down the street. But now sheep and cattle lay unheeded in the heat, panting and ruminant; every man was pushing toward the auctioneer; shopkeepers and customers crowded together to their doors; and even Mr. Parr, the vicar from Easterwyke, lingered on the grocer's step.
"Cod," said Bidker, "it be just like a preachin';" thinking, no doubt, of what he had seen in Methodist days.
Not a voice was heard but that of Pottlethwaite, which sounded loud and clear, "Seventeen; seventeen-ten; eighteen." The Grewelthorpe brothers were bidding against each other for a roan heifer. The auctioneer was very serious; the bidders did not need the spur of his wit—their mutual hate urged them on. Many pushed and pressed to get a sight of the brothers' faces. But there was little to be seen in them. A resolute lip, an eye fixed on the auctioneer, and a light nod first from the one and then from the other. Up and up went the bidding, till spectators began to stare at each other and to raise their eyebrows. Every one knew the value of the heifer had long been passed; it was plainly now a foolish, relentless duel in which the heifer was forgotten and hatred only remained.
"Twenty-seven; twenty-seven-ten; twenty-eight;" the eye of the town brother dropped a moment—"goin' at twenty-eight"—turned sideways it caught the flash of triumph in the country brother's eye and the satisfied sneer on his lip, and it again looked resolutely at Pottlethwaite. "Twenty-eight-ten," said Pottlethwaite. A nod from the other; "twenty-nine; twenty-nine-ten; thirty."
The excitement grew intense. The brothers knew they were merely throwing their money away; but no, neither would yield. In the tension of their passion they gradually turned to face each other. The lips were firmly set, the eyes fixed and fiery, as if the men were engaged in a belt-to-belt fight with knives. Every light nod the one cast at the other was a fierce stab. The passion of it began to glow in the bosoms and in the eyes of the crowd, and Pottlethwaite showed signs of anxiety and hesitation.
"Thirty-nine; thirty-nine-ten; forty; going at forty; any advance upon forty—"
"D— you!" cried the town brother, and fell down in a fit.
They gathered round to recover him. The victorious brother looked for a moment as if stung, and then turned away, muttering, "Done him out again. I swore I'd do it, and I done it."
In this bitter fraternal feud the sympathies of most had hitherto been, for no particular reason, with the bluff, obstinate miller, rather than with the retiring and reserved corn factor and agent. They had observed with satisfaction, and pointed out to wondering strangers, how the town brother would give the big miller the wall whenever they passed in the street; how he would submit to be outbidden at sales, outdone in subscriptions, outvoted in parish meetings, though they could account for their partisanship no better than by insisting that "the agent looked such a poor creature." But after this extraordinary exhibition of passion over the sale of the heifer, and the apparent indifference of the miller as to his brother's condition, a change of look and tone came over the crowd. They followed the miller's retreating figure with narrow eyes and something like repulsion. Another degree of heat added to their feelings would have made them hiss and hoot him. They turned to regard the agent, who was now sitting up, with a kind of pity.
"An' they wur once sae thick thegither!" said Long Ribston, looking from one brother to the other, striding off with his hand under his coat tail "Weel, theae's nou't sae queer as folks!"
"He dean't look ower strong," said Bidker, with his eye on the agent, now being led into the chemist's. "It be gey cruel o' that big John to harry and drive him as he do."
This was seized and assented to on all sides as the expression of the prevalent feeling. "He carry it too far now." "He be fair mad to run price up and throw money away like that." "They do say (speaking low) as how he be takin' t' drink." "Ah, it be time they made quarrel up, whativer it wur aboot. It been goin on for some years now, bain't it, Cocker?"
"Some year?" said old Cocker, chirruping into his favorite theme of the mysterious origin of the Grewelthorpe feud, and attracting about him a good many from Pottlethwaite's own audience. "It be nigh sivin year—sivin year came Michaelmas—sin' John buried his wife. Day o' funeral they were t' best friends, standin' by t' grave wi' fine new black coats on an' white handkerchiefs in their een; for, ye see, Gearge wur cruel fond o' t' neat, long-waisted Peggy afore John married her. Ay, ay; best friends day o'funeral. Next marnin' John walks into parlor at t' inn to ha'e a drink, and a little after in comes Gearge. They wur by theirsens, and I wur thinkin' o' goin' in to keep 'em company, when—ouf!—a hullabaloo that made us a' jump!—there wur cursin' and bangin' ower chairs and smashin' o' glass; an' I opens t' door an' there stands Gearge wipin' tipple frae his face and neck an' John in a white rage, wi' glass in his hand, like this, to thraw. 'What be up?' I says. 'Nou't,' says they. An' Gearge gang oot past me and says at bar, 'There's a glass broke. I'll pay for it.' (An'—he! he!—has paid for't.) An'—"
"An' naebody knaws yet," put in some one of those who had heard the story before, "what it wur aboot."
Cocker looked at the man, and frowned at his interruption of the steady flow of his narrative. "Naebody," said he, "unless it be thoo."
There threatened to be high words between the two, but the old storyteller was moved off home by his friends. There was a large company in the parlor talking all at once, but not quite in unison, about the sensational auction. All were agreed that the feud of the brothers had distinguished and disgraced Fulford long enough. "Why, next thing they'll be killin' t'une anither!' The cause of the quarrel should be ascertained, and the men brought to shake hands over it. But how? and by whom? Cocker shook his head; they had always been "cruel, passionate and obstinate lads."
Many friends had tried to bring them together. Even the parson had done his best—and his worst. He had, so far as he could, excommunicated them. He had preached so directly at them that the eyes of a full, plebeian evening congregation were incontinently turned on the two stiff-necked, stern-eyed men who sat on either side the aisle, each in his place as churchwarden; and when they rose to pass round the plates for the collection, he had addressed them by name, and ordered them to desist from the service of the Lord unless they were ready to forgive and embrace each other, upon which, without hesitation and without a word, they had surrendered the plates and walked out. He had forbidden their appearance at the sacramental table, and their holding any office in connection with the church, so that for a long time the church had ceased to know or see them.
No; how or by whom the feud was to be stopped no one could say; and old Cocker went back to his chair and his pipe in the corner.
But Fate had already begun to prepare the end of the feud in a way quite her own, by means which showed she understood the lives and tempers of men rather better than the parson.
That evening George Grewelthorpe, the town brother, sat in the dusky shadows of the little bar parlor with Cocker,
"I have, Cocker; you know I have," he was saying in a voice of remonstrance, "tried to let it drop. But he wean't. An' see what a fool he do make me. But I'll be even with him now."
"Um—m," murmured Cocker. "But it wur thysen, Gearge, played fool first—that I knaw. Now, look ye here; canstna get at him thro' his lass, Kitty? Thou wert aye fond o' her mother, wertna?"
"Now, Cocker, you knaw better than tell me to try thro' t' lass. You knaw he was aye jealous o' me."
"But it werena aboot that ye fell out—eh?"
George looked full at him.
"Thoo'rt tryin' to draw me, Cocker." After a pause: "If he'd just drop it; but he wean't. An' I bain't goin' beggin' and holdin' oot my hand to him—after he mak d—n fool of me all aboot!" He was silent.
There was a pause, during which Cocker felt about on the table, and got up and felt on the mantelshelf for a match. Having found one he returned to his seat. He scratched the light and held it up a moment to peer under at his companion, who sat stern and angry, with his eyes averted, nervously plucking at his whiskers. Cocker lit his pipe and continued:
"John, thoo see, be gey different frae thoo in soom ways. When thoo tak' to thinkin' on't, it mak's thoo look ill and sort o' d—d drunk like. But he—he allus look as if 'twere his meat and drink, and as if he throve on't uncommon weel. Weel, thou see, he has nou't else to think on scarce, as thoo has; so oot in field, or in mill wi' hoppers clatterin' and dust flyin', he nurse it, and nurse it, and keep thought o't fair coddled aboot's heart. But, for a', he can do non't wi' 't onless thoo cross and center him."
"He make me; and so does she—Aunt Kitty, I mean. The last thing she do in her will was to try and make fool of me. But she didn't know she gave me such fine chance to pay off scores wi' John!"
"Hump! What is this? I ask John, and he only say, 'Mousetraps, old Cocker.' Maybe, thoo'll say, 'Toasted cheese, old Cocker.'"
"Oh, it. dean't matter., Everybody'll knaw very soon; for it'll be up in Court and in newspapers; an' I think I'll get it. She put into her will, just for flout at me, that John was to hav' a' proputty in Fulford parish, and that I was to ha' a' in Thexton parish. Now thoo knaws it wur joke that Aunt Kitty had just enough land in Thexton—a bit corner at bottom o' field—as much as would mak' a grave."
"He! he!" Cocker could not help laughing.
"Weel, weel, I'll laugh too by-'m-bye. Now, ye think! I goes to lawyer Norton to arrange aboot gettin' ower my little bit land—"
"He! he!"
"When what do we find? The real old original boundary o' parish comes up by drain, which was oust a bit brook, and goes thro' end o' t' house! So all John has be three-quarters o' house, an' a bit o' back yard!"
"Whew! Thoo say so!"
Some months after, the case came on in a London Court. Of course all Fulford and the neighborhood were agog with speculation as to the result and cost of the trial; and there were a good many of the frivolous sort who had laid wagers on the event. So, one wintry forenoon, when old Cocker was seen bare-headed and bespectacled, trailing an open newspaper, and shuffling across the street to the house of his friend, the officer of excise, the word flew round, and before he had climbed the bank, he was prounced upon by the grocer and the baker, followed by Miss Hicks, the milliner (commonly reputed to have her maiden eye on one of the brothers), who, in her haste, had forgotten to put off her spectacles and to put on her cap straight. Then up came the butcher, and out came the excise man, and then another and another, each one quicker and more eager than the last (which is the law of accretion among human and other particles), till quite a crowd had gathered. But, bless you! no one need have hurried, for every one "knew" the case would have gone so. How could it help it? The will ran so and so and the parish boundary ran so; it was clear. A man with half an eye, old Cocker said, could see that, much more than a judge and a jury. "An' they two born idiots gone an' mayhap spent hundreds o' pounds on settlin' what might ha' been settled ower a twopenny pot o' ale!"
"An' it goes out o' t' town!" exclaimed the grocer.
"Except what the witnesses get," said the excise man.
It proved to be a terrible blow to John Grewelthorpe, the miller. He was for the first time "done out" by his brother; he was mulcted in heavy costs, and he was left in possession of the most ridiculous fragment of property man ever inherited—three-quarters of a house, and a small triangular section of back yard. If all the property had been won from him—that he could have endured; the loss would have been serious, but people would have regarded it seriously. As it was, he felt that every one laughed at him, and that every one had a right to laugh. His brother sent his lawyer with a kindly-meant offer to surrender the right the law allowed him to a part of the house, but the lawyer came back with a bouncing flea in his ear.
"Noo," said the miller, "just tell Gearge, you, if he send onybody here wi'ou't, or come himsen, I'll stick him head first i' that sweet duck-dabble! Dom his favors! Dost knaw he began wi' doin' me a favor? Dom! Nae mair! Law gi'es him quarter o' hoose, an' quarter o' hoose he'll ha'e! No, sir, thoo can wag."
The miller's answer of course soon got noised abroad, and it became a question of great interest at gossiping corners, and in the tap-room and bar of the old inn, how the division of the house was to be effected.
"Run up the petition wall," said old Cocker; "that's w a' they'll do."
"Faix !" cried Dr. Mahoney, "I'd manage aisier than that. Let it out in rooms to tenants, and divide the rints."
"Ah well," said the excise man, "they might just as easy let it to one tenant and divide the one rent."
"Yes, of course," said the Irishman, "of course. It comes to the same."
But one day Fulford became aware of the curious fact that scaffolding was being put up about one end of the house—"the Gearge end," as it was called. On closer inspection it was observed that a line of whitewash had been drawn obliquely across the roof and straight down the wall. The very curious went to question the workmen, and got for an answer that it "warn t to be told; but" (with a sly twinkle), "this bit be comin' down." People watched the work of demolition, how carefully it was conducted; the slates taken from the roof whole, and the brick cleared of mortar and piled. They looked at each other and laughed; no one had expected such a solution of the difficulty as this.
"They tell ye what," said old Cocker, in confidence to the exciseman, "that John be dom'd clever, malicious divil!"
It may be guessed that George was enraged at getting his quarter of the house handed over to him in this useless, broken shape. But he said nothing—at least not in public—and at home he had none but a deaf, old housekeeper to talk to. Perhaps he was the more inclined to be silent because he had already a scheme of retaliation, which threatened to be so serious in its consequences to his brother, that he hesitated to carry it into execution till he was stung to it by this new instance of implacable brotherly malice. On one piece of ground which his Aunt Kitty had by will unwittingly assigned to him, and on which he had for some years tried, with little success, to produce cabbages, he determined to build a steam mill. He knew his purpose was fratricide, and he feared others would see it was, and would cry "Shame!" upon him. So he tried to cover it, for decency sake, with talk about the necessity, in these pushing times, when business had so much increased, of a town like Fulford bestirring itself to supply all the wants of the neighborhood; it was notorious that the mills of Barford did much of the grinding of the Fulford district—why should this be? By a lucky chance he possessed a piece of worthless ground; he would risk the building of a mill for the good of the community, But George need not have excused his action so elaborately. He took very few in by his talk, and he might have known that friends and neighbors do not severely condemn a questionable act when they expect to profit by it.
The mill was built, and became very popular. Steam power was then in its youth (at any rate, in that district), and was believed to be capable of the greatest marvels of work I at the smallest possible expense. The belief, indeed, still obtained credence among the older and the more ignorant folk that it was a manifestation of the Evil One.
"But if it be divil," said old Bidker, "as soom say, it will be very good divil; eh Cocker?"
Carts and waggons of grain from the uplands, instead of rattling and lumbering on to Barford, now turned to Fulford, and Miller John had the chagrin of seeing them slowly come down the hill, tearing open one side of the road with their clumsy skid pans, and dash past him with fierce cracking of whips and wild "Woahoos," to take the opposite slope, up which the great broad-hoofed horses panted and scraped on their way to his brother's. If anyone came upon him at such a time, and ventured to condole with him on that "divlish trick of Gearge," he would face him with "Folk'll soon find difference atween divil's steam an' God's watter, and till that time God almighty can look aifter's ain watter, an' I can look aifter mysen," and then he would turn sharply off and enter his mill.
Big John's faith that the popularity of steam was a mere passing whim was severely tried. All that year, even right through the busy grinding months that follow on an abundant harvest, team after team of toiling horses dragged their rich load of wheat, of barley, or of pulse through the hollow past the old water-mill on to the town, and drew up under Aunt Kitty's house, which still stood as the workmen had left it, with one end completely open to wind and weather, a woeful witness to the foolish strife and spite of kindred. It became a general belief in the town and among the farmers that the occupation of big John and his ancestral water-mill was gone. There was no unseemly rejoicing over the fate of the miller and his mill; on the contrary, there was much expression of sorrow, of a calm and unproductive sort. A few, indeed, who did not like to see an old friend and neighbor and an old institution grow mouldy and wass, without an effort to save them, took John an occasional hurried job or two—a sack of oats to hash for next day's provender, or a bushel of wheat to grind for Friday's baking. But the work was done so badly—"The grit and dirt in't," said one, "be just as if 'twere swept off barn floor"—and customers were received so grumpily—"Why," he asked them, "didna ye tak' this where ye took t' rest?"—that they were not tempted to return to him. And their consciences were the more at ease in forsaking him, in the knowledge that he had curtly refused one or two "little jobs," saying that he could get plenty to do without such dirty bits, and in the comforting belief that since he said so it must be true. And certainly in this belief they were sustained by the evidence of their own eyes and ears. Whenever they passed the water was rushing and splashing, the wheel turning and dripping, and the hoppers clattering, just as in the busy old days. To shrewd and observant persons (which of course the men and women about Fulford were) this was all very puzzling, for no inquiry could discover anyone who empolyed John the Miller. Some, however, were found, who had met him, sometimes early, sometimes late of a night, going or returning on the Barford road, driving the one lean horse left to him, with a cart-load of full sacks.
"Good night, John," they had said, "Thoor t busy at mill, then, late and early."
"Business must be done, sirs," he had answered.
If any one pressed a question, where he was taking his sacks to or bringing them from, he would say, finger on nose, " Government contract."
For want of another, this explanation of his continued activity was generally accepted, though it did seem singular that the Government should come out of its way to employ big John. The officer of excise declared, if it was so, it must be a job; big John must have somehow got at their member, Sir Thomas. The schoolmaster and the literary tailor (who had both tried to "get at" Sir Thomas and had failed) exclaimed it was "scandalous;" and even the successful George, who had been having some qualms of conscience for having stripped his brother of business, again hardened his heart against him.
But, job or no job, either the Government contract was very unprofitable, or John was become a great miser. He contrived to work the mill without any assistance; he even allowed his daughter Kitty to go as maid into Squire Harding's family (some were "particularly" told he insisted on her going); his jolly figure shrank to a gaunt skeleton; his trousers attracted passing notice, from the transparent tenuity of one part, and the thick, clumsy patching of another; and whenever he turned up in public (which now was seldom) his manner was truculent and suspicious. From all which (since it could not be that the Government paid him) it was readily concluded John was a "miserable hunks." There was another thing which lent color to this view: he never now tried to "do out" his brother at sales; when he appeared at them he would fidget here and there on the outskirts of the crowd, feeling and fumbling in his pockets, and if Pottlethwalite appealed to him for a bid, he would seem to wake up and stand irresolute a moment, and then would shake his head and stride away.
"He got some sense at last," said old Cocker. "We wean't throw away nae mair brass."
Yet his balance at the bank (as the clerk let friends know in confidence) did not increase; on the contrary, it was gradually growing less. But that was at once taken as excellent evidence of the miserly instinct working in him, which craves and lusts for the nightly finger of the precious gold; he was of course hording away his large savings somewhere about the mill, and he intended, bit by bit, to withdraw what the bank held of his, and add it to the chinking, shining pile.
But that Government contract was surely an unusually long one. Winter had softened into spring, spring had brightened and settled into summer, and summer deepened and swelled into autumn, and still the gaunt figure of John, with his gaunt horse and loaded cart, was met of an evening coming and going on the Barford road; still, whenever you might pass the mill water rushed and splashed, the wheel turned and dripped, and the hoppers clattered. The door, indeed, was never seen open now, not even its upper half, in the old sociable way, and no one would think of putting his nose into the miser's den and asking how he was. It is not to be wondered at that a feeling of something mysterious in all this should arise and spread. Sober, canny men began to shake their heads and purse their lips when talking of big John. It was agreed that it was not to the credit of an honest, respectable township like Fulford that John should be allowed to continue unquestioned his "secret, nefarious traffic." (These last were the words of the tailor with a taste for literature.)
"Ah, now, be aisy," said Dr. Mahoney one night, as the miller was being thus discussed in the old inn parlor—"be aisy. The old John's doing nothing wrong, I'll be bound. Oh, yes, it's true he shuts himself up. Now, now! because a man's lost his flesh don't ye go for to take his skin!"
When the doctor had gone out, switching his boot with his riding whip, much disgust was expressed at his defence of "'t au'd miser." Some one on the back bench spoke up, and said he knew why "t' doctor be so found o' au'd John." Being pressed for an explanuation, he said, "Doctor be sweet on t' lass, Ah, but I seen um! an' t' lass'll ha've all th' au'd man's brass as he hides away in stockings an' rat-holes."
"Ah, be that it?" The wise topers at once found this an explanation of a great deal, and made it an incentive to action. For might it not well be that Mahoney was in the miller's secrets, and wan sharing, eh ? Ecod! why should they not go down to the mill one night, while the miller was out on the Barford road, and enter and see what game he was up to? "And hunt out a rat or two from the holes," suggested one.
"Cod, yes!"
Now it chanced that the doctor, on leaving the parlor had turned into the bar—"just a hot whisky, me darlin', wid a bit of lemon"—and being suspicious that the topers might talk of him when he was gone, had, with a wink to the landlady, applied his ear to a convenient hole in the pine-board partition from which a knot had been pupshed. Of course he heard all that passed.
"Just sayin' the plisantest thing about your humble servant," he whispered to the landlady. "But, don't tell 'em I heard;" and with that he swallowed his whisky, and went off sucking the "bit o' lemon."
It was quite true he was in love with the trim little Kitty. Even while she was a thin, pale-faced girl, slaving about her father's house, he had lingered to talk with her. But after she had been some months in Squire Harding's house he had met her, and stared, blushed, and instantly taken fire with love. The poorly-dressed slip of a girl, who had left the mill, was hardly recognizable in this fresh, graceful young woman. So now he was very much alarmed by what he had overheard in the inn, not only on account of his sweetheart's father, but on his own. These valiant topers might set out on their expedition the very next night—drunk probably—to hunt a rat or two! He knew what that meant, and he feared: for, like every right-minded young man who has his way to make in the world, while he loved his "sweet Kitty so dearly, so dearly," he by no means despised her probable dowry, which he, like every one else, believed to be bestowed in "stockings and rate holes." Mahoney's medical practice made him quick to act in emergency. He stood a moment at the gateway of the inn, and looked up and down the street. The grocer was puttiing up his shutters; it was half past seven, it would be dark in less than two hours. Yes, he could do it. He ran up the yard.
"Jim! Jim! Oh! there you are. Get the mare out. No no; she's tired, the other."
"Saddle, sir?"
"No, beggar, no—of course not. The gig."
In twenty minutes he was at Squire Harding's side door. A quarter of an hour later he was dashing along with Kitty by his side, by the cross roads to the mill.
The doctor, after tying up the horse to the dusky yew, paused and looked at Kitty. He had not told her that half his purpose in coming to the mill was to ask her father's sanction to their engagement, and now the air of the place seemed to damp his ardor. The only sound was the monotonous spill of the "wastewater." The great wheel looked sodden and mouldy. The cart stood propped in the tumble-down shed. It was full of sacks: had the miller just returned, or was he just about to set out? They went to the house door, and tried it, and knocked. No answer. They went to the mill door; it was also locked, and no sound came in reply to repeated knocking. Ah, the little shutter window was unfasted; should he, Mahoney asked, enter that way and then open the door for Kitty? Perhaps something had happened to her father. In any case both were curious to see what it was the mill had been so busy with for months. Soon they were both in the mill. They looked about them in the dim light. Strange! A mere damp fustiness of smell; none of that warm fragrant odour of flour and meal in which mills are embalmed. Mahoney pushed open the shutters all round. . . Not a single sack; not a grain of wheat; not even a floury festoon of dust on wall or roof! They looked at each other in silent amazement; not a rat squeaked; the floor, the platforms, the hoppers were swept utterly empty and bare. A common impulse sent them out to look into the sacks in the cart. . . . Filled with sweepings, decaying ropes and cord, musty hay and straw, everything! They did not need to speak. It was plain to both that during all these months the old mill had been busily grinding nothing!
Through the mill they made their way into the house. In the kitchen they found the miller—he that had been called "Big John"—sitting in an armchair before a spark of fire, looking like an unwinking, ghastly Death. At sight of the two, a warm flush suffused he cadaverous face, and burned into his eyes. He tried to stand up, but he sank back into his chair again. He had always been a stern, undemonstrative father, and his daughter was always afraid to show any emotion; but his sad condition now so moved her she could not restrain herself. She threw herself on her knees before him, and wept and sobbed with her face in his lap. He looked this way and that for a moment, and his stubby chin began to work strangely. At length he looked suddenly at Mahoney:
"Weel—I s'pose thoo'st found a' oot in there?" motioning with his head toward the mill. "Weel, weel. It be a' up, eh! Or," again flushing and sitting up, "be ye come to say folk got back to right mind?—eh? Nae mair divil's steam, eh? Cod! I'll do that Gearge oof yet! Dom him!"
But the excitement was too much for him. He sank back pale and faint. He crossed and pressed his arms over his stomach, closed his eyes and uttered a faint moan. Mahoney guessed what this was—starvation. Till now he stood in utter blank surprise. Now he recovered his wits. He spoke to Kitty and sent her to get a light and to find what food there was, made John drink some brandy from the flask which he always carried, and felt and counted his pulse. He tried to persuade him to let them help him to bed, but "No," said John, "I be a' right. I'll bide here."
Kitty brought a piece of resiny wood and lit it, whispering there was neither candle nor coal, crust nor scrap, to be found any where.
In a minute or two Mahoney was driving into the town for food, in grave doubt whether it would be of any use. It suddenly occured to him to stop at the house of the other Grewelthorpe; he ought to know of his brother's condition. George Grewelthorpe, when he heard, was overcome with consternation and remorse, called himself a fool for ever having believed in such a thing as a government contract, and begged to be taken up to his brother.
"It been a' my fault from t' first, Doctor! I mun gan to him."
With such things as were necessary they returned to the mill. Kitty met them at the door in great distress; her father's behaviour was so unlike what she had ever known it before; he had been calling her by honeyed names. "And, oh, what do you think he's been living on all this time?—rats! ugh!" They entered the kitchen. John looked up sharply. "You've been giving him too much of the brandy," said Mahoney to Kitty. At the sight of his brother he seemed to swell and bristle with the old malice and obstinacy.
"No, no," said he, trying to rise; "I beart done oot yet!"
"John," said his brother in a choking voice, holding out his hand.
"Gearge?" said he, looking at the extended hand a moment, and then grasping it and sitting down. The hands kept pressing each other with a perceptible vibration.
"Has left of steam then?" asked John.
"Divil tak' steam!"
"Ah, I thought so," said John, with a smile in which he almost fainted away again. In a little time some chicken-broth was ready for him. While taking it he kept glancing furtively at his brother, and letting something of an angry cloud regather about his face.
"Gearge,"said he at length, pressing his brother's hand again, "I warn't now—eh?, wuz I?"
"What?"
"Thoo knows; drunk the even' o' her funeral—eh?"
"N—no, John; no."
Thus the Grewelthorpe feud ended. Next day a waggon from the steam mill brought something for the empty hoppers of the old mill to clatter about, and next week it was announced that the mills would be worked in concert by the firm of "Grewelthorpe Brothers."
Warragul Guardian, Thursday 6 October 1881, supplement page 2 (reprint from Temple Bar).
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