Полная версия
A Double Knot
Suddenly in the midst of the work there was the sound of a whip cracking, accompanied by loud oaths, many of them very red, shouts, and the jerking noise of chain harness.
It was nothing new, but being a diversion from the monotony of their work, half the brickmakers stopped to look on.
The remnant of a fine horse was in the shafts of a heavily-laden sand cart, which he had dragged for some distance through the tenacious mud of the deeply-cut ruts, till, coming to a softer place than usual, one wheel had gone down nearly to the nave in the mire, tilting the cart sideways, and every frantic struggle made by the poor beast only seemed to set it more fast. Its hoofs, which sank deeply, churned up the mud and water, and it stood still at last with heaving flanks, its great earnest eyes staring appealingly at its masters, while the blindfolded skeleton in the clay mill went round and round, then stopped short, and gave its head a jerk, as if saying once more, “It doesn’t matter; it will not be for long.”
Click, clack, clack went the whip, and the skeleton in the mill started energetically once more, while the horse in the cart struggled spasmodically to move the load, much of its strength being, however, exhausted by extricating its hoofs from the clayey, sticky mud.
Click, clack, clack went the whip once more, and as Jane Glyne came along panting and perspiring with the weight of her bundle, a little crowd of clayey savages began to collect.
The horse struggled with a piteous expression in the wrinkles above its starting eyes; its flanks heaved; they moistened the lash of the cruel whip, and still it strove; but the cart wheels had sunk so low that a team could hardly have dragged it out, and the willing beast vainly essayed the impossible. A dozen strong men stood around, as many shovels were within reach ready to remove the clay from the wheels, and partially dig them out; but, as Jane Glyne looked on, in a strange, hard, callous manner, no one made a move, not a hand was placed to a wheel-spoke to help with a few pounds the labouring beast. Cartloads of hard broken brick rubbish lay about that could have been thrown down to fill up the ruts; but not a barrowful was brought, and amidst a shower of oaths, there was added, to make it a storm, a shower of blows.
The horse’s struggles grew interesting, and as the little crowd increased pipes were replenished, and the heavy clay-sullied men looked on.
More blows, more struggles; but the cart sank deeper, and was not likely to be moved, for, in spite of the frantic way in which the horse plunged into its collar, it could not stir the load an inch. Not an inch, strong as it was; but there is exhaustion even for the strongest, and at last the poor brute stood deep in the tenacious mud, with wet heaving flanks, staring eyes, and trembling in every limb.
“Here, give us holt!” cried father; and his children brought up in this earthly school looked on with glee.
“Father ’ll soon fetch him out,” said the eldest boy; and it seemed that at last the poor brute was to get some help. But it was not help the horse was to have, for the whip was handed to father.
“Take holt on his head,” he cried to the man in charge, and the latter ruffian seized the rein, and began to jerk and drag the bit savagely.
“Jeet – jeet – aw – a – a – ya! Hoot!” roared the ruffian, with a hot burst of oaths, while father, puffing regularly his smoke, turned his machinery to bear upon the poor dumb brute, and with a grim smile lashed and cut at it, ingeniously seeking out the tender parts beneath.
“Gie’t ’im, lad. Gie’t ’im,” rose in chorus.
The poor trembling horse, roused by the stinging thong, shot into the collar in a way that broke one of the chains that linked it to the shaft, and then as a more cruel lash fell upon its side, it fell upon its knees, the cart shafts pinning it down as the load sank forward. Now followed more lashing, the horse struggled frantically, rolled over, dragging its legs from the mud, plunged and struck out as if galloping, though its hoofs only beat the mud and water. Then it raised its head two or three times as if trying to regain its feet, before letting it subside into the mud, and the eye that was visible began to roll.
“Get up!” roared father, with a burst of oaths, and again the whip came into play.
But it was an order that the poor brute, willing to the last, could not obey, pinned down as it was by the shafts and the weight of the sand. At the first cut of the whip, though, the horse struck out with its hoofs, sending the mud flying, and causing a roar of laughter amongst the crowd as father was bespattered from head to foot. Then there was a curious gasping cry as the horse threw up its head; a shiver ran through its heaving frame; a couple of jets of blood started from its nostrils; there was a strange sigh, and the head fell heavily down in the mud and water.
Even then there was a sharp lash given with the whip, just as a convulsive kick or two splashed up the mud, before the willing beast lay motionless; it had broken its heart – no metaphor here for excess of sorrow, but the simple truth, while the listening skeleton in the mill gave its head another jerk, and seemed to say, “I knew it wouldn’t be for long.”
“Well – ”
Father did not finish his sentence, for Jane Glyne uttered a loud shriek and dropped her bundle in the mud just as a shout arose from one of father’s clay-daubed sons.
“Hi! chivy him,” roared the boy. “Bill Jones’s dawg has got that kid.”
It was too true: the wolfish starveling beast had watched his opportunity while the crowd was occupied, slinked up to the shed, seized the babe by one arm, and was stealing cautiously off, when the boy turned and saw him, shouted, gave chase, and the savage brute broke into a heavy lumbering canter.
For a short distance he dragged the child along the earth; then, with a dexterous twist, he threw it over his shoulders and increased his pace.
“Hi! stop him, hi!” roared a score of voices which echoed through the brickfield, and men, women, and children came hurrying from all parts to take up the chase.
For they saw in a moment what had taken place, and the hunt roused all to a pitch of excitement consequent upon the evil reputation borne by “Bill Jones’s dawg.”
This being the case, the way off to the open fields where the woodland and stream lay beyond the flat plain was closed, and for a moment or two the dog halted and threw up his head to see that he was hemmed in on three sides by enemies, while at his back was the canal, and for water he had no love.
Enemies they were indeed, for the brickfield savages were human, after all, and every man, woman, and child was armed with shovel, stick, or well-burned fragment of refuse brick – this last, a missile that he knew by heart as angular and sharp; and dog as he was, he had sense enough to feel that, if taken, they would pound the life out of his wretched carcase on the spot.
If he had dropped his prey, he might have shown his pursuers a clean pair of heels; but he was hungry – wolfishly hungry, and more savage than domestic as he was, he literally knew the taste of that which he held between his teeth. He would have died the death before, on suspicion, had not Bill, his master, interposed. Now, however, he saw the said Bill armed with a clay spade, although he whistled to him to come. But “Bill Jones’s dawg” knew too well the treachery of the human heart, and would not listen to whistle nor following call.
Which way should he go? Towards that frantic woman who had torn off her shawl? No. There was the clinker kiln, where a whole burning of bricks was spoiled. He could not reach the open – he would have been cut off as he went, and chopped with spades, and stunned with brick-bats; but there was that kiln standing old and weather-beaten, a very sanctuary of bricks burned into solid masses, full in view, though a quarter of a mile lower by the other works. Yes, there was that kiln abounding in convenient holes, where he had often spent the night; he might reach there in safety with his prey, and then —
“Hi! stop him – stop him!”
The yelling crowd was closing in and growing more dangerous every moment, so the dog took a tighter grip of his prize, and made straight for the old kiln.
Brickmaking was impossible in the face of such a chase, and everyone joined in, with the full determination that this day “Bill Jones’s dawg” must die.
“Hi! stop him – stop him!”
By an ingenious double or two, the dog nearly reached the refuge that he sought, but he was cut off and turned back by swift-footed boys, yelling with excitement and panting to hurl the first lump of brick at the hated beast. But the dog kept out of harm’s way by running between the rows of piled-up, unburnt bricks, which afforded him shelter, and the baby, too, for missiles went flying after them at every chance.
Up this row, down that, and zigzag to and fro, till the canal was near, and the forces joining, the dog was nearly driven to leap into the foul stagnant water; but again he doubled, passed through an opening, and was once more in the shelter between two rows of bricks, cantering along towards the end. Here, though, he was cut off again by one of the lads, who, divining the course he had taken, shouted to part of the contingent, and turned the wily brute back.
But he was not beaten. He was starving, but he was hard and strong: no fattened, asthmatic favourite was he, but long-winded and lank, ready to run for an hour yet, even with the load he bore. Wily too, as his relative the fox, he cleverly doubled in and out, in the maze-like rows of wet bricks, avoiding as if by magic the missiles that were thrown; and at last, just as the boys were driving him back towards the spade-armed men, whom he had from the first given a wide berth, he cleverly dashed for the weak part in the advancing line of lads, passed them, put on all his pace, and went away for the kiln.
There were swift runners amongst those lightly-clad, barefooted boys, and now that it had become a tail race, away they went with all their might, faster and faster, and yelling till they were hoarse. For there were shouts and cries of encouragement from behind, enough to spur on the greatest laggard, and on they went till the dog reached the old kiln and tried to enter a low hole, probably the one he made his den.
Here, though, he had a check, by the clothes of the infant catching in the rough scoria, when – foxlike – he backed out, turned, and then began to back in.
That momentary check saved the child: for just as it was disappearing in the opening, the foremost boy bounded up, caught the infant by its leg, and the long robe it wore, and, pulling and shouting hard, succeeded in drawing the wretched little object back, the dog snarling savagely, and holding on with all his might; but just then half a brick smote him on the head, he loosed his hold, and, backing in, the child with its lacerated arm and shoulder was held up on high amidst the cheering of the boys.
In another minute the panting crowd surrounded the opening, and Jane Glyne had the baby in her arms, wondering whether it was alive or dead.
The tragedy was not over yet.
Bill Jones stood amongst the men, and was for defending his “dawg,” but the blood of all present was thoroughly roused, and though Bill declared his readiness to fight any man present for a pot, he soon cried off on finding that his challenge was taken up by a score of fellow-workers, half of whom began to prepare for the trial by battle on the spot.
“I don’t keer what you do wi’ the dawg,” Bill growled, taking out and beginning to fill his pipe, and directly after joining in the attempt about to be made to get the beast out of his place of refuge.
Forming themselves into a semicircle round the opening, a part stood ready, while some of the sturdiest brickmakers began to drag the burrs apart, a task in which they had not been long engaged, standing upon the heap, before there was a rustling noise; the old rough bricks began to crumble down inwards; and with a savage snarl the frightened dog bounded out.
There was a shout, a chorus of yells, mingled with which was the last ever given by “Bill Jones’s dawg,” for his mortal race was run. Even Cerberus of the three heads could not have existed many seconds beneath the shower of bricks and clinkers that assailed him after the savage chop given by father’s spade. One yell only, and there was a mass of brick rising over him, the dog’s death and burial being a simultaneous act on the part of those who, old and young, did not pause until they had erected a rough but respectable mausoleum over the wolfish creature’s grave.
“Put a bit o’ wet ’bacco on the place,” said father, removing his pipe as he turned to where Jane Glyne and mother were examining the little frail morsel, which, in spite of its usage, began now to wail feebly; “put a bit o’ wet ’bacco on the place; it ain’t dead. There, give it to mother; and, I say, when are you going to pay agen?”
“Never,” cried Jane Glyne, hastily wrapping the baby in the shawl now handed by one of the staring girls.
“Oh, it ain’t hurt much,” said father; “put a bit o’ wet ’bacco on the place.”
“Hurt!” cried the woman excitedly, as with a newly-awakened interest she held the child tightly to her hard breast, “it’s a’most killed, and if it lives, that dog’s teeth have poisoned it, and it will go mad.”
“Not it,” growled father; “why, the dawg is dead. Give it to mother, and I say, when – why, she’s gone!”
He said this after a pause, as he stared after Jane Glyne hurrying towards the path where her bundle lay, but thinking more of her little burden, inoculated by the poison of those wolfish teeth – blood-poisoned, perhaps, as to its mental or bodily state – certainly suffering from lacerations that might end its feeble little life.
Volume One – Chapter One. The Story – Years Ago.
Cinderella and the Sisters
“Ruth.”
“Yes, dear; I’ll come directly.”
“Ruth!”
“Be quiet, Clo. She can’t come yet.”
“But she must come. Ruth!”
“May I go to her, Marie?”
“No, certainly not. Finish my hair first.”
Two pretty little white patient hands went on busying themselves plaiting the rich dark-brown hair of a singularly handsome girl, sitting back in a shabby, painted, rush-bottomed chair, in a meanly-furnished chamber, whose bare boards looked the more chilly for the scraps of carpet stretched by bedside, toilet-table, and washstand.
The bed had not long been left, and the two pillows each bore the impress of a head. The bedstead was an attenuated four-post structure, with dreary and scanty slate-coloured hangings, that seemed to have shrunk in their many washings, and grown skimpy and faded with time; the rush-bottomed chairs were worn and the seats giving way, and a tall painted wardrobe had been scrubbed until half the paint had gone. Even the looking-glass upon the paltry old dressing-table seemed to have reflected until it could perform its duties no more, for the silver had come off in patches, and showed the bare brown wood behind.
Wherever the eye rested it was upon traces of cleanly, punctilious poverty, for even the dresses that were hanging from the row of drab-painted wooden pegs nailed against the dreary washed-out wall-paper looked mean and in keeping with the room. There was not one single attractive object of furniture or attire besides, not even a bright spring flower in a vase or glass; all was drab, dreary, and dull, and yet the room and objects full of life and light.
For the girl seated indolently in the chair before the glass, draped in a long washed-out dressing-gown that heightened rather than hid the graces of her well-developed form, possessed features which might have been envied by a queen. Her dark, well-arched eyebrows, the long heavy lashes that drooped over her large eyes, her creamy complexion, rather full but well-cut lips and high brow, were all those of a beautiful woman whom you would expect to look imperious and passionate if she started into motion, and raised and flashed upon you the eyes that were intent upon a paper-covered French novel, whose leaves she turned over from time to time.
Bending over her, and nimbly arranging the rich hair that hung over the reader’s shoulders, was a girl not unlike her in feature, but of a fairer and more English type. Where the hair of the one was rich and dark, that of the other was soft and brown. The contour was much the same, but softer, and the eyes were of that delicious well-marked grey that accords so well with light nut-brown hair. There was no imperious look in her pleasant, girlish countenance, for it was full of care consequent upon her being wanted in two places at once.
For the sharp demand made upon her was uttered by a third occupant of the room – a girl of one or two and twenty, sister, without doubt, of the reader at the dressing-table, and greatly like her, but darker, her eyebrows and hair being nearly black, her complexion of a richer creamy hue, one which seemed to indicate the possibility of other than English blood being mingled in her veins.
She, too, was draped in a long washed-out print dressing-gown, and as she lolled upon a great box whose top was thinly stuffed and covered with chintz to make it do duty for an ottoman, her long dark hair fell in masses over her shoulders.
Sisters undoubtedly, and the family resemblance of the fair-complexioned girl suggested the possibility of her occupying the same relationship, though the difference was so marked that cousin seemed more probable.
“Finish your own hair,” cried the girl upon the ottoman, in an angry voice. “I won’t wait any longer; I was up first;” and she banged down the circulating library novel she had been skimming.
“Shan’t!”
“Bring my hairbrush, Ruth.”
The girl addressed retained her hold of the massive plait that she was forming, and, snatching a well-worn hairbrush from the table, reached out as far as she could from the tether of plait that held her to the girl in the chair, when the brush was snatched from her, and sent whizzing through the air, narrowly missing the reader’s head, but putting an end to the reflective troubles of the unfortunate toilet-glass, which was struck right in the centre, and shivered into fragments.
“Oh!” ejaculated Ruth.
“Beast!” cried Marie, leaping up, sending her chair backwards, and dashing the French novel at her sister.
“Wretch! devil!” retorted the other, her creamy face flushing, her dark eyes scintillating with passion, and her ruddy lips parting from her regular white teeth, as she retaliated by throwing the book she held, but with a very bad aim.
For a moment it seemed as if blows were to follow, but after a short skirmish with a comb, an empty scent-bottle, and a pin-cushion, the beginner of the fight uttered a cry of triumph, and pounced upon the French novel.
“I wanted that,” she cried.
“Ruth, fetch back that book,” cried Marie.
“Please give me that book back, Clotilde,” said the obedient girl, as, crossing the room, she held out her hand to the angry beauty.
For answer, the maiden upon the box caught her by the wrist with both hands, bent her head rapidly down, and fixed her white teeth in the soft, round arm.
“There, take that, and I wish it was ’Rie’s. Now you stop here, and do my hair directly. Hateful little beast! why didn’t you come before?”
The blood flushed up in Ruth’s face, and little troubled lines made their appearance in her forehead as, after a piteous glance at the other sister, she began to brush the great flowing bands of dark hair waiting their turn.
“I don’t care,” said Marie, with all the aggravating petulance of a child. “Mine was just done.”
“But I’ve got the book,” retorted the other. “Be careful, little beast; don’t pull it out by the roots.”
She turned her face up sharply to the busy toiler, with the effect that she dragged her own hair, and this time she struck the girl so sharply on the cheek with the open hand that the tears started to her eyes.
“Nasty, spiteful, malicious wretch!” said Marie, giving the finishing touches to her own hair; “but you’ll have a good lecture for breaking the glass. Aunties will be angry.”
“I shall say Ruth did it,” said the girl.
“Just like you, Clo,” retorted the other.
“If you call me Clo again, I’ll – I’ll poison you.”
“Shall if I like: Clo, old Clo – Jew – Jew – Jew! There!”
As she spoke, Marie turned her mocking countenance to her sister, and finished off by making what children call “a face,” by screwing up her mouth and nose; desisting, however, as Clotilde made a dash at the water-glass to throw it at her head, and then made a feint of spitting at her in a feline way.
The whole affair seemed to be more the quarrel of vulgar, spoiled children of nine or ten than an encounter between a couple of grown women in the springtide of their youth, and Ruth silently glanced from one to the other with a troubled, half-pitying expression of countenance; but she did not speak until the noise had begun to lull.
“Please don’t say that I broke the glass,” she said at last.
“I shall. Hold your tongue, miss. She broke it through her wretched carelessness, didn’t she, ’Rie?”
“Give me back the French book, and I’ll tell you,” was the reply.
“Take your nasty old French book,” said Clotilde, throwing it back. “I’ve read it all, and it’s horribly naughty. Now, then, didn’t she break the glass?”
“Yes,” said Marie, arranging her shabby morning dress, and standing before the fragments of the toilet-glass, a handsome, lady-like girl, whose beauty no shabbiness of costume could conceal.
“There,” said Clotilde, “do you hear, Cindy? You broke the glass, and if you say you didn’t I’ll make your wretched little life miserable.”
“Very well, dear, I’ll say I did,” said Ruth calmly.
“Hist, ’Rie! The book!” whispered Clotilde, her sharp ears having detected a coming step.
Marie made a pantherine bound across the room, and thrust the book between the mattress and palliasse just as the handle rattled, and a tall, gaunt elderly woman entered the room.
She was not pleasant to look upon, for there was too much suggestion of a draped scaffold erected for the building of a female human figure about her hard square bony form, while her hard face, which seemed to wrinkle only about the forehead, as if it had never smiled since childhood, was not made more pleasant by the depth and darkness of the lines in her brow all being suggestive of the soap and flannel never probing their depths, which was not the case, however, for she was scrupulously clean, even to her blonde cap, and its side whiskers with a sad-coloured flower in each.
“Morning, children,” she said harshly. “Your aunts ’ll be down directly. You ought to be dressed by now.”
“Morning, nurse,” said the girls in chorus.
“Ruth’s so slow,” said Clotilde.
“Then do your hair yourself,” said the woman roughly. “Ruth, child, turn down that bed, and open the window.”
Their actions before her arrival had been those of children; she treated them like children, and they were as obedient and demure now as little girls, while the woman placed a large white jug containing a tablespoon upon the table, and a plain tumbler beside it.
Ruth began to open the bed, and Marie cast anxious eyes at the part where her French novel lay perdu.
“’Tisn’t physic morning again, nurse,” said Clotilde pettishly.
“Yes it is, miss, so don’t you grumble. You know it’s Wednesday as well as I do.”
Clotilde turned her head away, and gave her teeth an angry snap as she went on rapidly dressing, while the new arrival poured out half a tumbler of a dark-brown fluid from the jug, after giving the said jug a twirl round to amalgamate its contents. This tumbler was handed to Clotilde.
“I’m not ready, nurse,” she said pettishly; “leave it on the table, and we’ll take it. We shall be down directly.”
“I don’t go till I can tell your aunts that every drop’s taken,” said the woman sturdily. “I know your tricks, making Miss Ruth drink it all. Both of you did last time.”
“Did Ruth dare to say we did?” cried Marie sharply.
“No, she didn’t, miss, so don’t you go in a pet.”
“Then how could you tell?” cried Clotilde.
“How could I tell, big baby?” said the woman scornfully; “why, wouldn’t three doses make her ill?”
