Between Two Loves/10
CHAPTER X.
THE HAND THAT TURNS BACK.
"He putteth down one, and setteth up another."—Ps. lxxv. 7.
"Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord."—Rom. xii, 19.
"It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting."—Eccles. vii. 2.
"Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good."—Rom. xii. 21.
Keighley was then a pretty Yorkshire town surrounded by sylvan scenery, and with a few premonitions of the factory and furnace smoke that was in the future to make it rich. It was nearly dark when Burley reached it; but Jonas Shuttleworth was a famous man in Keighley, and his residence was easily found. It was one of a long row of small white cottages, and when Jonathan knocked with his hand upon the door, a strong, querulous voice called out, "If ta is Jonathan Burley, come in."
The two men had never seen each other before, and the elder one looked at his visitor with sharp but not unkindly eyes. "So thou art my nephew Jonathan. Why, thou looks varry near as old as I am! Come thy ways in to t' fire, and sit thee down, thou's welcome. I thought thou'd be here, and I hev waited tea a bit for thee."
He was a thin, rosy-cheeked old man, with eyes as quick and bright as a ferret's, and plenty of money wrinkles around them; very tall, but remarkably erect, and even when quiet, giving an idea of extreme pugnaciousness. He wore a rather shabby corduroy suit and a scarlet night-cap, and on Jonathan's entrance rose, pipe in hand, to welcome him.
The tea was quickly placed upon a small round table between them, and without any preliminaries the subject of Burley's troubles introduced. "I hev heard a good deal," said Shuttleworth, "but I want to hear it all from thy own lips. Tell me t' whole truth just as if I was thy lawyer, and don't thee be afraid to let out any bit o' meanness thou hes been forced to do; I'm none too clean-handed mysen."
The subject was one on which Jonathan always waxed eloquent. He described his mill, his house, and his beautiful daughter enthusiastically. He told of her courtship by Squire Aske, of his pride in the connection, and of the handsome settlement he had made on the bride. He did not entirely justify Eleanor in the matrimonial disputes which had followed her marriage, but he excused her largely because of her youth and high spirit, and because also of her nascent jealousy of Jane Bashpoole. Then, with kindling anger, he described her return home, the stand he had taken in the quarrel, and Aske's quiet, persistent, iniquitous revenge.
Before he had done, the elder man was on fire. He had put his pipe down, and with his arms laid across the table, was listening with ill-suppressed passion to Jonathan. "My word!" he cried, when the story was finished—"my word! but we'll give 'em enough of it! I like t' little lass for heving such a spirit I'd like to thresh Aske for putting a finger on her. If I was nobbut a young man I'd do it. But I hevn't done with them. I can meet him with t' English law, and thou ask Matthew Rhodes what he thinks of fighting Jonas Shuttleworth that way. But I'll tell thee, Jonathan, what I am going to do in t' morning. We have another hour to-night, and I'll spend that in getting to know thee."
With these words he dropped the subject of the lawsuit entirely, and manifested an almost childish curiosity about Eleanor's appearance, her dresses, her entertainments at Aske Hall, her presentation at court, and her acquaintance with great people. If Jonathan had not first seen the other side of his uncle's character, he would almost have despised him for his womanish curiosity about such small things.
In the morning, however, Jonas Shuttleworth was a very different man. Before Burley had finished his breakfast he was at his hotel. "Ay," he said, in answer to Burley's invitation, "ay, I'll have a cup o' coffee; eating and drinking helps talking. I think I hev got t' hang o' thy affairs now, and I'll tell thee what we'll do. First, about thy mill; how many looms hes ta idle!"
"Eight hundred."
"Set 'em going at once."
"It will take a deal o' money to do that."
"I'll be bound for it. I'll hev to do summat wi' my brass. I was thinking o' sending it to t' Fejees and t' Africans; but happen it will be just as good a thing to keep five hundred Yorkshire lasses at work in their own village. It's a bad thing when mill-hands hev to run here and there for work. Home's a full cup, Jonathan."
"You're right, Shuttleworth, and God knows I'll be glad and grateful to see ivery shuttle flying again and to watch t' old crowd in and out of t' gates, morning and night. I will that!"
"As to Bashpoole lot, I hev an old spite at them. Squire Bashpoole and me hes been tooth and nail at it three times, and I hev licked him ivery time—wi' damages! I'm going to please mysen about him and his family. Dost ta know them big gates at t' entrance of his park, Jonathan?"
"Ay, I hev seen 'em."
"And thou remembers that little mill village round Longbottom's factory that straggles right up to 'em?"
"I think I do."
"I own t' most o' them cottages, and I own that strip o' sandy, frowsy land running above them, in a line wi' the high wall Bashpoole built to shut his own park in. He said t' factory lads and lasses got oover t' pailings and walked among his beeches, and he didn't like it. So he built 'em out. Well, on that strip o' sandy land I am going to put up a soap factory. There's plenty o' wool mills round, and soap is a sure thing, and though he can build lads and lasses out, he can't build a smell out."
Jonathan burst into a hearty laugh. "You'll be indicted for a nuisance," he said.
"Ay, I will. I'll like that. I'm out of a lawsuit of any kind now. I hev had twenty-four, my lad, and won them all! T' tenants in them cottages are mostly my tenants. I can make t' rents that comfortable they wouldn't smell a brimstone factory, and, ta knows, they are well used to bad smells with t' boiling wood in t' mills. Bashpoole will swear it's a nuisance; varry good, there's fifty o' my tenants, closer to t' nuisance than he is, will swear it isn't. Bashpoole is a varry parnickaty, fussy old gentleman. That soap factory will bring him to his senses, if anything will. I'll teach him to meddle wi' my bonny grandniece, and to hev his high-flying, fox-hunting daughter travelling round t' world w' my niece's husband. He'll hev to come and see me in t' end about that soap-boiling, and then I'll tell him plainly, 'Tit for tat, squire. Your nephew built a lock to annoy my nephew.' If there's anything I call a satisfactory payment, Burley, it is paying a man in his own coin. Now, then, when does ta expect the verdict about thy case?"
"Soon after the New Year."
"I'm impatient for it. If it isn't a fair one, we won't hev it at any price. We'll fight t' whole case oover. We'll take it to t' Lords and Commons before we'll be beat. My word, Jonathan! I'd like thee to see Matthew Rhodes's face to-morrow when I tell him I'm going to tackle Aske."
"Will ta see Rhodes to-morrow?"
"Ay; I hev a varry gratifying bit o' business with him. He hes some money to pay me in a case I won last week, only a right o' way, that one o' his clients robbed me of. I didn't want it, but I wouldn't hev it taken without leave or license, and it's turned out to be worth two hundred pounds and expenses. I'm going to see Rhodes to-morrow, and get t' little bit o' brass."
"I'll go with thee if ta likes."
"I'd like nothing better."
Certainly Jonas Shuttleworth looked as if the business pleased him. He was as cheery and chirrupy as if he were going to a bridal, and an apparently irrepressible smile lingered about his puckered mouth all the way to Leeds. Rhodes met him with a grim, watchful courtesy, and was evidently surprised to see Jonathan Burley with him.
The money was silently paid over, and Shuttleworth, having carefully tied it up in a buck-skin bag, said, "There is some pleasure in fighting thee, Rhodes. Thou art no fool. I'm right glad thou art Anthony Aske's lawyer, for now thee and me are going to hev it hot and heavy!"
"Sir?"
"I say, as thou art Aske's lawyer, thee and me are in for t' biggest fight thou iver had."
"I do not understand you, Mr. Shuttleworth."
"Well, I'll mek mysen clear enough before I've done. Aske and thee are two of as big rascals as Yorkshire owns, but I'm not going to see you rogue my nephew any longer."
"I am somewhat accustomed to your adjectives, Mr. Shuttleworth; still, I would advise you that to call a man a rascal is actionable."
"Keep thy advice until I think it worth paying for; or make an action of t' word rascal if ta wants to. Dost ta think that any jury in t' West Riding is going to fine me for telling thee a bit o' truth? Thou art too well known round here to get a farthing o' damages, Rhodes. And thou wilt hev enough to do just now to defend thy client against me and my nephew."
"Mr. Shuttleworth, I have paid you all the law allowed, and my business is done with you. Good-morning."
"Stop a bit. My business isn't done with thee, and that is what I'm staying for. Dost ta think anybody stops a minute longer in thy spider's parlor than they can help? I hev come to tell thee that Jonathan Burley is my nephew, my sister's lad, and that I am going to fight his quarrel for him."
Rhodes looked quickly up. He was astonished and dismayed, but he controlled himself wonderfully, and answered, with apparent indifference, "I congratulate Mr. Burley on his champion. It is a pity, Shuttleworth, that you did not come forward before your nephew was ruined."
"Speak about what thou knows. My nephew ruined! Not he. He'll hev time to run ivery loom in his mill, for I'm going to look after t' lawyers for him. And I want thee to understand I wasn't fool enough to come up wi' my help in t' beginning of t' battle. I was waiting till Aske's bank account was overdrawn. Now, tell him he hes got the whole quarrel to fight oover again, if t' verdict don't suit us. I'm quite ready for it. I've hed my say now, and so I'll bid thee good-morning."
"Ready for it!" If Jonas Shuttleworth had said longing for it, he would only have spoken the truth. He was one of those men to whom the legal arena is a positive delight, and Burley's case appealed to his feelings on several sides. The two men spent a really happy time together, and when Jonathan left his uncle on Christmas-eve it was with a heart full of hope and gratitude. He felt ten years younger, for as iron sharpeneth iron, so he had been brightened and strengthened by his uncle's help and sympathy.
The snow still lay upon the moors, but he knew them well, and the road to his own home would be much shortened by going across them. True, he would be compelled to pass Aske Hall, but the thought now rather stimulated him. He had been told that Aske had come home, but he did not feel then as if he would go a yard out of his way to avoid meeting his enemy.
In the mean time Eleanor was in a mood of peculiar sadness. Her father had not told her of Shuttleworth's letter, and she thought it very likely that this would be her last Christmas in Burley House. And never, in all her memories of the festival, had Christmas-eve seemed so little like it. The servants were middle-aged, and disinclined to pleasure that put the house out of order or made extra work. No one, this year, had thought it worth while to gather holly and haw, or to hang up the pleasant mistletoe branch. A little extra cooking seemed to be the one idea of Christmas left in their sad house, and to Eleanor's mind there was nothing festive in that rite.
In the afternoon she went out to walk off the melancholy that oppressed her. The ground was white and hard, and there were plenty of greens and berries in the park, but, after a moment's thought, she found that she had no heart to gather them. Besides, the park was not a place she liked to walk in, for among its shady groves Anthony had wooed and won her. She was constantly met there by sudden drifts of tender thoughts, which only gave her unavailing regret and sorrow.
Her usual walk was a little lane that skirted the back of the house, and led directly over the common to Aske Hall. It was the road she had taken that unfortunate night when she made her unsuccessful effort to see her husband. The misery of that long, dark walk, the sight of the handsome, angry face of the man she still loved, the apparent hopelessness of all reconciliation, made it always a sorrowful way to her. For since her last conversation with her father, she understood plainly that he would regard any advance towards her husband as a deep and cruel wrong to himself. She was in a sore strait, and she felt utterly unable to do anything in it but endure and wait.
In the cold, gray afternoon she walked rapidly, folding her long black cloak tight around her, to protect herself from the keen air. She was not thinking of any grief in particular; it was only Anthony! Anthony! that ran like the echo of some mournful cry through her heart. At that moment Anthony was passing Burley House. Perhaps some hope of seeing his wife had led him to take that road. Perhaps he had chosen it simply because it was a mile or two shorter.
In time, we forgive even those whom we have injured. His proud heart felt a pang as he passed the little garden wicket, where Eleanor, in the first bloom of her fresh loveliness and love had so often stood watching his arrival and departure. The lonely look of the big dwelling also touched him. He slackened his rein, and rode onward, full of regretful thoughts. At a sudden turning a few yards before him he saw a woman approaching. Her head was dropped, she was dressed in black, in the chill winter twilight she had an inexpressible air of pathetic and yet proud sadness.
Oh, how well he knew her! It was his Eleanor, his wife! The woman still tenderly beloved. A perfect tempest was in his heart. If he had been strong enough, he would have lifted her to his saddle, and carried her back to his home. He could not determine whether to stop and speak to her, or to pass her by unless she spoke to him, and while he was trying to decide, he found himself close to her.
Then Eleanor looked up and recognized the proud, handsome face gazing so intently into hers. Alas, in the shock and surprise, she did not see the tender longing, the unspoken invitation that made it almost luminous. She stood still a moment, trembling violently, but speech entirely forsook her, and possessed she knew not by what fear, she hurried on. Then she heard his horse's hoofs in a mad gallop, and every beat of them seemed to be upon her heart. Love, longing, shame, sorrow, tossed her on a sea of passionate regret.
"Oh, if she could retrace the evil road! Oh, if Anthony could ever again be the lover husband of the old happy days! Why had she not spoken to him? Why had she not held his bridal-reins and made him listen to her? Oh, how foolish, how cowardly she had been. And Anthony would think her still proud and unforgiving and unrepentant. Oh, what a miserable wife she was;" and thus murmuring broken laments, and prayers of contrition, and implorations for pardon and comfort, she went rapidly, and almost unconsciously, along the frozen road.
At the same hour, Jonathan was driving homeward in an unusually happy mood, and as he crossed the lonely moor he was singing his favorite hymn for company:
"Though trouble springs not from the dust.
Nor sorrow from the ground.
Yet ills on ills, by Heaven's decree,
In man's estate are found.
"As sparks in close succession rise,
So man, the child of woe,
Is doomed to endless cares and toils
Through all his life below.
"But with my God I leave my cause.
From Him I seek relief;
To Him, in confidence of prayer.
Unbosom all my grief.
"Unnumbered are His wondrous works.
Unsearchable His ways;
'Tis His the mourning soul to cheer.
The bowed-down to raise."
He went over and over the verses, trying to make them fit, first to one tune he liked, and then another. Not far from Aske Hall, he saw two men leap over the wall and disappear. He called to them to come and clean the balled snow out of his horses feet, but they paid no attention to his request. The circumstance, though a trivial one, impressed him unpleasantly. The spirit of song was gone, he was suddenly watchful and expectant. He turned in his gig and looked all around. The snow was so white that darker objects easily attracted attention, and Burley noticed a horse, restless and rearing.
"That horse must be tied," he argued. "If it was restless and loose, it wouldn't remain in t' same place."
He drove near to it, alighted, and examined the creature. It was a fine mare, expensively caparisoned, and someone had fastened her securely to the stone wall. He had instantly an impression that the animal was Aske's, and he connected its peculiar situation with the flight of the two men who had refused to answer his call.
"There's something wrong here!" he muttered. "I wonder if Aske hes gotten hurt, or if he's been robbed!" He stood still and thought a few moments. "If he hes, it's none of my affair. He deserves all and more than he'll get in this world, I'm sure. I might call at t' Hall and tell them about it, though, and happen it might be some stranger going to Aske for t' Christmas holidays. I mebbe ought to look around a bit."
He was walking slowly along the stone fence as these thoughts passed through his mind, and he had not gone fifty yards, when he saw the white, upturned face of an apparently dead man.
"Why—a—it's Aske!"
He shook all over. For a moment a fierce joy thrilled him from head to foot; the next one he was bending over his prostrate foe and asking, "Does ta know me?"
"Water!" gasped Aske.
"Ay, I'll get it for thee."
There is always running water by a stone fence on a Yorkshire moor, and Burley knew, though it was silent under its coat of ice, it was there. But what should he bring it in? He was a man good in emergencies, and he took out his watch, broke off the case, and filled it again and again with precious mouthfuls for the perishing man.
"Don't leave me to die Burley. I—will—give—up—the—suit!" whispered Aske. "Save me, Burley."
"Not for t' biggest bill o' damages iver given."
"I'll—give—up—the—mill, too."
"Not for t' mill, nor for all thou hast. But it's Christmas eve, and for Christ's sake I'll save thee if I can. My gig is close by, and I am going to lift thee into it. Bear up as well as ta can."
But with the first movement Aske became insensible, and Jonathan discovered that his head was bleeding profusely. He bound it with his own handkerchief as tightly as possible, then with his pocket-knife he cut loose Aske's horse. "It will let them know there's summat wrong, and fetch, help, happen."
Then he brought his gig as close as possible to Aske, and lifted the insensible man into it. The body of the vehicle was too small to allow Aske to be laid across it, but he supported him against himself, keeping his left: arm around him, and holding the reins with the right. He drove as rapidly as possible, and near the Hall gates met some of the grooms from the stables, who had been alarmed by the return of the riderless horse. Two of them remained to assist Burley with the wounded squire, the rest were sent in every direction in search of any medical aid that could be found.
The force by which a man throws a good action out of him is invisible and mystical, like that which makes trees blossom and fruit, and Jonathan, in the pitiful, holy work of saving life, had never once remembered that it was the life of his bitterest enemy. Not until he was alone again did he take notice of his blood-stained hands and clothes, and recollect, with a shudder, whose blood it was.
Oh, if he had been thus stained with taking life instead of sparing it! For one awful moment he had a revelation of a murderer's terror and remorse; the next, his heart rose in a wave of gratitude and found expression in a fervent, audible "Thank God! thank God!" And all the way home he was ejaculating, "It might have been! But for his mercy! God forgive me! God forgive me!"