A Little Wizard, Page 2

  CHAPTER II.

  MALHAM HIGH MOORS.

  Still nearly an hour elapsed before the tired horse stopped at thedoor of the small grey dwelling which Gridley had pointed out. Thehouse, a rough farmstead of four rooms, stood high in a nook of themoor, facing Ingleborough. A few yew-trees filled the narrowing dellbehind it with black shadow; a low wall of loose stones which joinedone ridge to another formed a fold before it. The clatter of hoofs, asthe horse climbed the rocky slope leading to the house, brought out aman and woman, who, leaning on this wall, watched the couple approach.

  The aspect of the man was stern, dry, and austere; in a word, at onewith the harsh and rugged scene in which he lived. His gloomy eyes andsquare jaw seemed signs of a character resolute, narrow, bigoted, andit might be cruel. At first sight the woman appeared a helpmeet wellsuited to him. Her narrow forehead and thin lips, her pinched nose andsmall blue eyes, seemed the reproduction in a feminine mould of hismore massive features. Despite this, she constantly produced uponstrangers a less favorable impression than he did; and though thisimpression was rarely understood, it lingered long and faded slowly ifat all.

  The aspect of the two as they stood side by side was so forbidding,that the child, faint with fatigue and disappointment, had hard workto repress his tears. Nor was the uneasiness confined to him only, forthe butler's voice, when he raised it to greet his kinsfolk, soundedunnatural. His words tumbled over one another, and he alighted with afussiness which betrayed itself.

  On the other side the most absolute composure existed; so thatpresently the man's fulsome words died on his lips. "Why, brother," hestammered, with something of a whine, "you are glad to see me?"

  "It may be, and again it may not be," the other answered grimly.

  "How so?" Gridley asked, changing countenance.

  "Have you turned your back on the flesh-pots for good?" was the severeresponse. "Have you come out of Egypt and away from its abominations?For I will have no malignants here, nor those who eat their bread andgrow fat on their vices? If you have left the tents of Kedar, then youare welcome here. But if not, pass on."

  "I have left Pattenhall, if that is what you mean," the youngerbrother answered sullenly.

  "And its service?"

  "Ay, and its service."

  "Who is the lad you have with you?" Simon Gridley asked keenly.

  "He is a Patten," the butler answered reluctantly; "but he has neitherhouse nor land, nor more in the world than the clothes he stands upin."

  The answer took both the man and the woman by surprise. They stoodgazing as with one accord at the boy, who, with his lips trembling,changed feet and shifted his eyes from one stern face to another.

  "I have heard something of that," the elder Gridley said, with a sternsmile.

  "He comes of a bad brood."

  "Nevertheless, you will not refuse him shelter," his brother answered."He is a child, and I have nowhere else to take him."

  "Why take him at all?" the Puritan snarled fiercely. "What have you todo with the children of transgression? Have you not sins enough ofyour own to answer for?"

  The butler did not reply, and for a moment the boy's fate seemed tohang in the balance. Then the woman spoke. "Bring him in," she saidharshly and suddenly. "It may be that he is a brand snatched from theburning."

  She spoke with authority, and her words seemed to be accepted as afinal decision. Gridley pulled the child sharply by the arm, and,himself wearing a somewhat hangdog expression, led him across the foldand through the doorway, the others following. The scene outside, theleaden sky and grey moor and falling rain, had reduced the boy to thedepth of misery; the interior to which he was introduced did little tocomfort him. The hearth was fireless, the stone floor bare andunstrewn. A couple of great chests, a chair and two stools, formed,with a table, a spinning-wheel, and a rude loom, the only furniture.The rafters displayed none of the plenty which Jack was accustomed tosee in kitchens, for neither flitch nor puddings adorned them, but inthe window-seat a gaunt elderly man with a long grey beard sat readinga large Bible. He looked up dreamily when the party entered, but saidnothing, the rapt expression of his face seeming to show that he wasvirtually unconscious of their presence.

  "Luke is the same as ever?" the butler said in a low voice to hissister-in-law.

  "He has his visions, if that is what you mean," she answered tartly."Same as he ever had, and clearer of late. Set the child there. Youare hungry, I dare say. Well, you'll have to wait. In an hour it willbe supper-time, and in an hour you will have your supper. But you willget no Pattenhall dainties here."

  The elder Gridley went to the loom and began to work, while hisbrother, repressing a sigh of discontent, sat down and gazed at thehearth, regretting already the step he had taken. Mistress Gridleylooked fixedly and with compressed lips at the boy, who sat in thecold chimney corner, too much terrified to cry. The only sounds whichbroke the dreary stillness of the house were the rattling of the loomand the murmur of Luke Gridley's voice, as his tongue followed themechanical movement of his finger.

  Such was their reception; the child, hungry and fear-stricken, thoughtwith a bursting heart of the home he had left, of the friends and thevery dogs of Pattenhall, its trees and sunshine, and warm kitchen. Thegrim silence of the room, the woman's cruel eyes, the bareness andgreyness, seemed to crush him with an iron hand, so that it was onlyby an effort, almost beyond his years, that he repressed a scream ofpassionate revolt.

  Nor did he suffer alone. The butler, despite the care with which hehid his feelings, was little more at home in his company. He had nolonger anything in common with his kinsfolk. In his heart he cringedbefore their rugged natures as a guilty dog crouches before itsmaster. But he had thoughts of his own and a purpose to serve; andthis enabled him to put a good face on the matter, or at least toendure with a wry smile.

  The scanty meal of cheese and oatmeal eaten, and Luke's longextemporary prayer brought to an end, the strangers were taken to oneof the two upper rooms. In five minutes the tired child was asleep;not so his companion. Gridley, fatigued as he was, lay and watched thelast glimmer of daylight die away, and then, when all the house wasdark and quiet, he sat up and listened. His wallets lay on the floorbeside him. He rose and crawled to them, and for a long time crouchedon the boards by them, thinking. He wanted a hiding-place--beforemorning he must have a hiding-place; but the scanty furniture of theroom afforded none. This he had not anticipated, and the perplexityinto which it threw him was so largely mingled with fear, that hefancied the loud beating of his heart must attract attention eventhrough the walls. After some minutes of misery he made up his mind,and rising from the floor crept to the door and opened it. All was sostill in the house that he took fresh courage. He went back to hiswallets, and drawing something from them stole on tiptoe down thestairs, each creaking board--and there were many--throwing him into acold perspiration. When a coward gives himself to wickedness, he paysdearly for his fancy.

  The staircase opened directly into the kitchen, where he stood awhilelistening on the hearth. Luke, the preacher, slept in the back-room,and the door seemed to be ajar. Gridley felt his way through thedarkness to it and softly closed it. Then he peered round him. Wherecould he hide what he had to hide? Memory, conjuring up the objectsround him, suggested one place after another, but in each case heforesaw the possibility of accident. The linen-chest? Mistress Gridleymight take it into her head to inspect her store of linen. Theunder-part of the sink? She might be about to clean it. The dresserwas out of the question. He decided at last on the oatmeal chest, andgroping his way to it found it, to his delight, unlocked and halffull. The objects he had to hide were small; he ran little risk, hethought, if he buried them near the bottom of the meal.

  After pausing again to listen and assure himself that he was notwatched, he plunged his treasure deep in the soft meal. Then withtrembling hands he drew the stuff over it, jealously smoothing andpatting the surface in his fear lest dayligh
t should disclose somesigns of what he had been about. This done, and as he believed,effectually, he heaved a sigh of relief, and laid his hand on the lidof the chest to close it. At that moment a thin ray of light piercedthe darkness in which he stood, and falling across the floor of thekitchen, chilled him to the heart.

  Even in his panic he had sufficient presence of mind to close the lidsoftly, but the act detained him so long that he had no chance ofmoving away from the chest; and there Mistress Gridley found him whenshe entered, with her rushlight shaded, and her small eyes gleamingtriumphantly behind it.

  "Ho! ho!" she said, in a whisper; "I have caught a rat, have I?"

  "I was hungry," he stammered, recoiling before her, "and came down tosee if there was any porridge left."

  "You lie!" she answered contemptuously, pointing to his hands as shespoke. They were covered with oatmeal. "I know you of old. You havebeen hiding something. Let me see what it is."

  For a moment, despair giving him courage, he raised his hand as if hewould have done her some injury; but the woman's eyes cowed him. "Holdthe light, fool!" she said. "Let me see what you have got here."

  She rummaged an instant in the meal, and presently, with an abruptexclamation, drew out something which glittered as she held it up. Itwas a small gold cup. As she turned it to and fro, and the light whichtrembled in the man's craven hands played quiveringly on the burnishedsurface of the metal, her eyes glistened with avarice. She drew a longbreath. "It is gold!" she muttered wonderingly.

  The wretched Gridley murmured that it was.

  Glancing at him askance, and still clutching the cup as if she fearedhe might snatch it from her, she plunged her other hand into the meal,and drew out in quick succession a flagon and a small plate of thesame precious metal. Such success, as one came forth after the other,almost frightened her. She gazed at the spoils with all her greedysoul in her eyes. She had never handled such things before, andscarcely ever seen them, but with intuitive avarice she knew theirvalue, and loved them, and clutched them to her breast. "You stolethem!" she hissed. "They are from some church. Tell me the truth."

  "They have been hidden at the Hall--since before the Squire's death,"he stammered.

  She held them out again and looked lovingly at them. When she turnedto him again, it was to wave him off. "Go!" she said fiercely, "theyare not yours. I shall take them. I shall give them to--"

  "Your husband?" he retorted desperately, moved to boldness and actionby the imminence of the danger. "Your husband? He would call them theaccursed thing, and grind them to powder and strew them on MalhamTarn. What would you gain by that?"

  She scowled at him, knowing that what he said was true; and so theystood a moment gazing breathlessly at one another. Before he spokeagain their eyes had made an unholy compact. "Let them remain here,and do you play fair," he said slowly, "and I will give you the largeone."

  "I might take all," she muttered jealously.

  "No," he snarled, showing his teeth; "I should tell him."

  Her eyes fell at that, so that it scarcely needed the slight shiverwhich passed over her to assure him that he had touched the rightchord. Smooth and hypocritical, and, like all hypocrites, afraid ofsome one, she feared above all things her husband's stern and pitilesscode; knowing that no offence could seem more heinous or lesspardonable in his eyes than this dallying with the accursed thing,this sin of Achan.

  So the compact was made. The larger vessel was hidden at one end ofthe meal-tub, the two smaller vessels at the other end. Eachaccomplice showed the same reluctance to trust the other, the sameunwillingness to take leave of the spoil; but at last the chest wasclosed, and the two prepared to retire. Then a thought seemed tostrike Mistress Gridley. "Why have you brought that brat here?" shewhispered, as they prepared to mount the stairs. "Don't talk to me ofgratitude, man! Tell me the truth."

  He shifted his feet, and would have fenced with her, but she knew him,and he gave way. "Times may change," he said. "The land and the housemay come back. Then it will be well to know where the lad is."

  "Umph!" she said. "I see."

  Perhaps her knowledge of the butler's plan prevented her beingactively cruel to the child. On the other hand, neither she nor anyone gave him a word or look of kindness. He had no place among them.Luke was wrapt in visions. Simon was too sternly self-contained, toocompletely under the mastery of his cold and ascetic faith, to givethought or word to the boy.

  The other two had the meal chest to guard and each other to watch.

  He was left to feel the full influence of the grey moorland life. Thedismal stillness of the house, the lengthy prayers and repellentfaces, drove him out of doors; the silence and solitude of the fells,which even in sunshine, when the peewits screamed and flew in circles,and the sky was blue above, were dreary and lonesome, scared himback to the house. Once a week the family went four miles to ameeting-house, where Luke Gridley and a Bradford weaver preached byturns. But this was the only break in his life, if a break it could becalled. In Simon's creed boyhood and youth held no place.

  Rumors of trouble and war, moreover, diverted from the child some ofthe attention which the elder people might otherwise have paid him.Sir Marmaduke Langdale's riders, scouting in front of the army whichDuke Hamilton had raised in Scotland, were reported to be no fartheroff than Appleby. Any day they might descend on Settle, or a handfulof them pass the farmstead, and levy contributions in the oldhigh-handed Royalist fashion. Simon and Luke, wearing grimmer facesthan usual, cleaned their pikes, and got out the old buff-coats whichhad lain by since Naseby, and held long conferences with their friendsat Settle. The boy, aimless and without companions, acquired a habitof wandering in and out during these preparations, and more than oncehis pale face and dwarfish form appearing suddenly in their midst gaveLuke Gridley, who was apt to weave what he saw into the unsubstantialtexture of his dreams, a start beyond the ordinary.

  "Who is that child?" he said one day, looking after him with atroubled face. "There used to be no child here."

  "The child?" Simon exclaimed, glancing at him impatiently. "What hasthe child to do with us? Let it be."

  "Let it be?" said the other, softly. "Ay, for a season. For a season.Yet remember that it is written, 'A child shall discover the matter.'"

  "Tush!" Simon answered angrily. "This is folly. Isn't it written also,resist the devil, and he will fly from you!"

  "Ay, the devil--and his angels," Luke repeated gently.

  Simon shrugged his shoulders. Nevertheless he too, when he next metthe lad wandering aimlessly about, looked at him with new eyes. Thoughhe was subject to no active delusions himself, he had a strong andsuperstitious respect for his brother's fantasies. He began to watchthe boy about, and surprising him one day in a solitary place in theact of forming patterns on the turf with stones, noted with a feelingof dread that these took the shape of a circle and a triangle, withother cabalistic figures as odd as they were unfamiliar. He would notat another time have given such a trifle a second thought. But we seethings through the glasses of our own prepossessions. The morose andrugged fanatic, who feared no odds, and whom no persecution couldbend, looked askance at the child playing unconsciously before him,looked dubiously at the grey moor strewn with monoliths, and finallywith a shiver turned and walked homewards.