his arm. It was Tyson, the landlord. He saluted me as we passed in the hall. There was something open and fearless in the air of the man that appealed to me at the moment, and, having parted from my parson, I followed my landlord into his little red parlor at the back of the bar. He gave me a cheery welcome, and began to joke about my visitor, called him “Mr. Sky Pilot,” and said it was the first time his reverence had deigned to cross the threshold of the Wheatsheaf. I learned that Mr. McPherson was a fanatical teetotaler, and that this was understood to be the qualification that had led to his appointment by the patroness of his living.
“No wonder, nowther,” said Tyson, “seeing the lesson she's been getting all the days of her life, poor lady.”
“What lesson?” I asked.
“Nay, hast a nivver heard tell of owd Geordie Clous'al?”
I remembered the talk of the miners in the train. “Thirsty owd Geordie, as they called him?” I said.
“The verra same man,” said my landlord. “Miss Lucy's for breaking the curse, I reckon.”
“What curse?” I asked.
“Then you're not knowing owt of the Clous'al history, sir?”
I had to confess that though Miss Clousedale was my friend, my intimate friend, I knew nothing about her family. Mrs. Tyson was laying her husband's tea. “Psha, John,” she said, “don't bother thy head with such owd wife's stories.”
I drew my chair to the fire. “A story of a curse!” I said. “I must hear it at all costs.”
Tyson laughed. “Thoo must take it as it comes, then,” he said, and while he munched his great mouthfuls, he told his tale.
Old George Clousedale, the grandfather of Lucy, and the founder of the fortunes of the Clousedale family, was a hard and cruel master. It was told of him that if he saw a poor widow picking cinders from the refuse of the smelting house to warm her old bones on a wintry day, he would drive her away with threats and oaths. One Sunday morning two of his miners were walking home from the church in the valley, when, crossing the beck, they kicked up a red stone. It was good, solid iron ore. This was a find that promised great results. The men agreed to say nothing of their discovery until such time as they could take out royalties and begin mining on their own account.
One of the two was faithful to his bond; the other broke it secretly. While the first was borrowing money towards his visit to the lord of the manor, the second went to the house of his master, told all, and accepted a bribe of twenty pounds. Within a week George Clousedale had bought up the royalties of another mine, and was sinking another shaft.
The miner who had been betrayed was mad with rage. He went in search of his faithless partner, and thrashed him within an inch of his life. The man was arrested, and George Clousedale was the magistrate by whom he was tried. He was sentenced to six months' imprisonment.
The poor fellow was young, and had been the only support of his mother. When he was sent to Carlisle the old woman went up to the house of George Clousedale, and asked for the master. He came out to her in the hall, and she railed at him as a traitor and a tyrant. Losing himself at her insults, he snatched a riding whip from the wall, struck her on the head, and told her to be off to hell, and never dare to show her face in his house again. The woman drew herself up to him and cried, “You brutal ruffian, it's yourself that will go to hell, but before you go you will have the fire of hell in your body, and feel a thirst that can never be quenched! You will drink and drink till you die, and your children will drink, and your children's children will drink, and your great grandchildren, forever and ever!”
“But,” I said, “you don't mean to tell me the curse came true?”
“Have it as you like, sir,” said Tyson, “but in less nor six weeks and Geordie Clous'al was tak'n with a burning heat of his inside, and he drank, and drank, and drank, and in a matter of twelve months he was dead.”
“What children had he?”
“Only a son—young Geordie, as we caw'd him. Young Geordie laughed at the owd tale as they telt of, but at forty he was seized with the same burning thirst, and at fifty he was in a drunkard's grave.”
“And—and Lucy—Miss Clousedale?” I asked.
“She was nobbut a bairn when her fadder died, and they've tak’n time by the forelock, and brought her up teetotal,” the inn keeper said.
I laughed, Tyson laughed, his wife laughed, and we all laughed together. “A good old witch story,” I said. “I wonder who ever makes up these queer, gruesome yarns.”
