Pearl-Fishing; Choice Stories from Dickens' Household Words; First Series

Gahan spoke with unusual volubility, but without raising his eyes from the ground.

“Who were the people,” asked his master, “whom I saw moving through the western grove?”

“People! your Honor – not a sign of any people moving there, I’ll be bound, barring the pigs.”

“Then,” said Mr. Hewson, smiling, to his wife, “the miracle of Circe must have been reversed and swine turned into men; for, undoubtedly, the dark figures I saw were human beings.”

“Come, Billy,” said Gahan, anxious to turn the conversation, “will you come home with me now? I am sure ’twas very good of the mistress to give you all them fine apples.”

Mrs. Hewson was going to propose Billy’s remaining, but her husband whispered: – “Wait till to-morrow.” So Gahan and his child were allowed to depart.

Next morning the magistrates of the district were on the alert, and several suspicious-looking men found lurking about, were taken up. A hat which fitted one of them was picked up in Mr. Hewson’s grove; the gravel under the end window bore many signs of trampling feet; and there were marks on the wall as if guns had rested against it. Gahan’s information touching the intended meeting at Kilcrean bog proved to be totally without foundation; and after a careful search not a single pike or weapon of any description could be found there. All these circumstances combined certainly looked suspicious; but, after a long investigation, as no guilt could be actually brought home to Gahan, he was dismissed. One of his examiners, however, said privately, “I advise you take care of that fellow, Hewson. If I were in your place, I’d just trust him as far as I could throw him, and not an inch beyond.”

An indolent hospitable Irish country gentleman, such as Mr. Hewson, is never without an always shrewd and often roguish prime minister, who saves his master the trouble of looking after his own affairs, and manages everything that is to be done in both the home and foreign departments, – from putting a new door to the pig-stye, to letting a farm of an hundred acres on lease. Now in this, or rather these capacities, Gahan had long served Mr. Hewson; and some seven years previous to the evening on which our story commences, he had strengthened the tie and increased his influence considerably by marrying Mrs. Hewson’s favorite and faithful maid. One child was the result of this union; and Mrs. Hewson, who had no family of her own, took much interest in little Billy, – more especially after the death of his mother, who, poor thing! the neighbors said, was not very happy, and would gladly, if she dared, have exchanged her lonely cottage for the easy service of her former mistress.

Thus, though for a time Mr. and Mrs. Hewson regarded Gahan with some doubt, the feeling gradually wore away, and the steward regained his former influence.

After the lapse of a few stormy months the rebellion was quelled: all the prisoners taken up were severally disposed of by hanging, transportation or acquittal, according to the nature and amount of the evidence brought against them; and the country became as peaceful as it is in the volcanic nature of our Irish soil ever to be.

The Hewsons’ kindness towards Gahan’s child was steady and unchanged. They took him into their house, and gave him a plain but solid education; so that William, while yet a boy, was enabled to be of some use to his patron, and daily enjoyed more and more of his confidence.

Another Evening, the twentieth anniversary of that with which this narrative commenced, came round. Mr. and Mrs. Hewson were still hale and active, dwelling in their hospitable home. About eight o’clock at night, Tim Gahan, now a stooping, gray-haired man, entered Mr. Hewson’s kitchen, and took his seat on the corner of the settle, near the fire.

The cook directing a silent significant glance of compassion towards her fellow-servants, said:

“Would you like a drink of cider, Tim, or will you wait and take a cup of tay with myself and Kitty?”

The old man’s eyes were fixed on the fire, and a wrinkled hand was planted firmly on each knee, as if to check their involuntary trembling. “I’ll not drink anything this night, thank you kindly, Nelly,” he said, in a slow musing manner, dwelling long on each word.

“Where’s Billy?” he asked, after a pause, in a quick hurried tone, looking up suddenly at the cook, with an expression in his eyes, which, as she afterwards said, “took away her breath.”

“Oh, never heed Billy! I suppose he’s busy with the master.”

“Where’s the use, Nelly,” said the coachman, “in hiding it from him? Sure, sooner or later he must know it. Tim,” he continued, “God knows ’tis sorrow to my heart this blessed night to make yours sore, – but the truth is, that William has done what he oughtn’t to do to the man that was all one as a father to him.”

“What has he done? what will you dar say again my boy?”

“Taken money, then,” replied the coachman, “that the master had marked and put by in his desk; for he suspected this some time past that gold was missing. This morning ’twas gone; a search was made, and the marked guineas were found with your son William.”

The old man covered his face with his hands, and rocked himself to and fro.

“Where is he now?” at length he asked, in a hoarse voice.

“Locked up safe in the inner store-room; the master intends sending him to gaol early to-morrow morning.”

“He will not,” said Gahan slowly, “kill the boy that saved his life! – no, no.”

“Poor fellow! the grief is setting his mind astray – and sure no wonder!” said the cook, compassionately.

“I’m not astray!” cried the old man, fiercely.

“Where’s the master? – take me to him.”

“Come with me,” said the butler, “and I’ll ask him will he see you?”

With faltering steps the father complied; and when they reached the parlor, he trembled exceedingly, and leant against the wall for support, while the butler opened the door, and said:

“Gahan is here, Sir, and wants to know will you let him speak to you for a minute?”

“Tell him to come in,” said Mr. Hewson, in a solemn tone of sorrow, very different from his ordinary cheerful voice.

“Sir,” said the steward, advancing, “they tell me you are going to send my boy to prison, – is it true?”

“Too true, indeed, Gahan. The lad who was reared in my house, whom my wife watched over in health, and nursed in sickness – whom we loved almost as if he were our own, has robbed us, and that not once or twice, but many times. He is silent, and sullen, too, and refuses to tell why he stole the money, which was never withheld from him when he wanted it. I can make nothing of him, and must only give him up to justice in the morning.”

“No, Sir, no. The boy saved your life; you can’t take his.”

“You’re raving, Gahan.”

“Listen to me, Sir, and you won’t say so. You remember this night twenty years? I came here with my motherless child, and yourself and the mistress pitied us, and spoke loving words to him. Well for us all you did so! That night – little you thought it! – I was banded with them that were sworn to take your life. They were watching you outside the window, and I was sent to inveigle you out, that they might shoot you. A faint heart I had for the bloody business, for you were ever and always a good master to me; but I was under an oath to them that I darn’t break, supposing they ordered me to shoot my own mother. Well! the hand of God was over you, and you wouldn’t come with me. I ran out to them, and I said – “Boys, if you want to shoot him, you must do it through the window,” thinking they’d be afeard of that; but they weren’t – they were daring fellows, and one of them, sheltered by the angle of the window, took deadly aim at you. That very moment you took Billy on your knee, and I saw his fair head on a line with the musket. I don’t know exactly then what I said or did, but I remember I caught the man’s hand, threw it up, and pointed to the child. Knowing I was a determined man, I believe they didn’t wish to provoke me; so they watched you for awhile, and when you didn’t put him down they got daunted, hearing the sound of soldiers riding by the road, and they stole away through the grove. Most of that gang swung on the gallows, but the last of them died this morning quietly in his bed. Up to yesterday he used to make me give him money, – sums of money to buy his silence – and it was for that I made my boy a thief. It was wearing out his very life. Often he went down on his knees to me, and said: ‘Father, I’d die myself sooner than rob my master, but I can’t see you disgraced. Oh, let us fly the country!’ Now, Sir, I have told you all – do what you like with me – send me to gaol, I deserve it – but spare my poor, deluded, innocent boy!”

It would be difficult to describe Mr. Hewson’s feelings, but his wife’s first impulse was to hasten to liberate the prisoner. With a few incoherent words of explanation she led him into the presence of his master, who, looking at him sorrowfully but kindly, said:

“William, you have erred deeply, but not so deeply as I supposed. Your father has told me everything. I forgive him freely and you also.”

The young man covered his face with his hands, and wept tears more bitter and abundant than he had ever shed since the day when he followed his mother to the grave. He could say but little, but he knelt on the ground, and clasping the kind hand of her who had supplied to him that mother’s place, he murmured:

“Will you tell him I would rather die than sin again.”

Old Gahan died two years afterwards, truly penitent, invoking blessings on his son and on his benefactors; and the young man’s conduct, now no longer under evil influence, was so steady and so upright, that his adopted parents felt that their pious work was rewarded, and that, in William Gahan, they had indeed a son.

VIII.

The Miner’s Daughter. – A Tale of the Peak

I. – THE CHILD’S TRAGEDY

THERE is no really beautiful part of this kingdom so little known as the Peak of Derbyshire. Matlock, with its tea-garden trumpery, and mock-heroic wonders; Buxton, with its bleak hills and fashionable bathers; the truly noble Chatsworth and the venerable Haddon, engross almost all that the public generally have seen of the Peak. It is talked of as a land of mountains, which in reality are only hills; but its true beauty lies in valleys that have been created by the rending of the earth in some primeval convulsion, and which present a thousand charms to the eyes of the lover of nature. How deliciously do the crystal waters of the Wye and the Dove rush along such valleys, or dales, as they are called. With what a wild variety do the gray rocks soar up amid their woods and copses. How airily stand in the clear heavens the lofty limestone precipices, and the gray edges of rock gleam out from the bare green downs – there never called downs. What a genuine Saxon air is there cast over the population, what a Saxon bluntness salutes you in their speech!

It is into the heart of this region that we propose now to carry the reader. Let him suppose himself with us now on the road from Ashford-in-the-water to Tideswell. We are at the Bulls-Head, a little inn on that road. There is nothing to create wonder, or a suspicion of a hidden Arcadia in anything you see, but another step forward, and – there! There sinks a world of valleys at your feet. To your left lies the delicious Monsol Dale. Old Finn Hill lifts his gray head grandly over it. Hobthrush’s Castle stands bravely forth in the hollow of his side – gray, and desolate, and mysterious. The sweet Wye goes winding and sounding at his feet, amid its narrow green meadows, green as the emerald, and its dark glossy alders. Before us stretches on, equally beautiful, Cressbrook Dale; Little Edale shows its cottages from amidst its trees; and as we advance, the Mousselin-de-laine Mills stretch across the mouth of Miller’s Dale, and startle with the aspect of so much life amid so much solitude.

But our way is still onward. We resist the attraction of Cressbrook village on its lofty eminence, and plunge to the right, into Wardlow Dale. Here we are buried deep in woods, and yet behold still deeper the valley descend below us. There is an Alpine feeling upon us. We are carried once more, as in a dream, into the Saxon Switzerland. Above us stretch the boldest ranges of lofty precipices, and deep amid the woods are heard the voices of children. These come from a few workman’s houses couched at the foot of a cliff that rises high and bright amid the sun. That is Wardlow Cop; and there we mean to halt for a moment. Forwards lies a wild region of hills, and valleys, and lead mines, but forward goes no road, except such as you can make yourself through the tangled woods.

At the foot of Wardlow Cop, before this little hamlet of Bellamy Wick was built, or the glen was dignified with the name of Raven Dale, there lived a miner who had no term for his place of abode. He lived, he said, under Wardlow Cop, and that contented him.

His house was one of those little, solid, gray limestone cottages, with gray flagstone roofs which abound in the Peak. It had stood under that lofty precipice when the woods which now so densely fill the valley were but newly planted. There had been a mine near it, which had no doubt been the occasion of its erection in so solitary a place; but that mine was now worked out, and David Dunster, the miner, now worked at a mine right over the hills in Miller’s Dale. He was seldom at home, except at night, and on Sundays. His wife, besides keeping her little house, and digging and weeding in the strip of garden that lay on the steep slope above the house, hemmed in with a stone wall, also seamed stockings for a framework-knitter in Ashford, whither she went once or twice in the week.

They had three children, a boy and two girls. The boy was about eight years of age; the girls were about five and six. These children were taught their lessons of spelling and reading by the mother, amongst her other multifarious tasks; for she was one of those who are called regular plodders. She was quiet, patient, and always doing, though never in a bustle. She was not one of those who acquire a character for vast industry by doing everything in a mighty flurry, though they contrive to find time for a tolerable deal of gossip under the plea of resting a bit, and “which resting a bit” they always terminate by an exclamation that “they must be off, though, for they have a world of work to do.” Betty Dunster, on the contrary, was looked on as rather “a slow coach.” If you remarked that she was a hard-working woman, the reply was, “Well, she’s always doing – Betty’s work’s never done; but then she does na hurry hersen.” The fact was, Betty was a thin, spare woman, of no very strong constitution, but of an untiring spirit. Her pleasure and rest were, when David came home at night, to have his supper ready, and to sit down opposite to him at the little round table, and help him, giving a bit now and then to the children, that came and stood round, though they had had their suppers, and were ready for bed as soon as they had seen something of their “dad.”

David Dunster was one of those remarkably tall fellows that you see about these hills, who seem of all things the very worst made men to creep into the little mole holes on the hill sides that they call lead-mines. But David did manage to burrow under and through the hard limestone rocks as well as any of them. He was a hard-working man, though he liked a sup of beer, as most Derbyshire men do, and sometimes came home none of the soberest. He was naturally of a very hasty temper, and would fly into great rages; and if he were put out by anything in the working of the mines, or the conduct of his fellow-workmen, he would stay away from home for days, drinking at Tideswell, or the Bull’s Head at the top of Monsal Dale, or down at the Miners’ Arms at Ashford-in-the-water.

Betty Dunster bore all this patiently. She looked on these things somewhat as matters of course. At that time, and even now, how few miners do not drink and “roll a bit,” as they call it. She was, therefore, tolerant, and let the storms blow over, ready always to persuade her husband to go home and sleep off his drink and anger, but if he were too violent, leaving him till another attempt might succeed better. She was very fond of her children, and not only taught them on week days their lessons, and to help her to seam, but also took them to the Methodist Chapel in “Tidser,” as they called Tideswell, whither, whenever she could, she enticed David. David, too, in his way, was fond of the children, especially of the boy, who was called David after him. He was quite wrapped up in the lad, to use the phrase of the people in that part; in fact, he was foolishly and mischievously fond of him. He would give him beer to drink, “to make a true Briton on him,” as he said, spite of Betty’s earnest endeavor to prevent it, – telling him that he was laying the foundation in the lad of the same faults that he had himself. But David Dunster did not look on drinking as a fault at all. It was what he had been used to all his life. It was what all the miners had been used to for generations. A man was looked on as a milk-sop and a Molly Coddle, that would not take his mug of ale, and be merry with his comrades. It required the light of education, and the efforts that have been made by the Temperance Societies, to break in on this ancient custom of drinking, which, no doubt, has flourished in these hills since the Danes and other Scandinavians, bored and perforated them of old for the ores of lead and copper. To Betty Dunster’s remonstrances, and commendations of tea, David would reply, – “Botheration Betty, wench! Dunna tell me about thy tea and such-like pig’s-wesh. It’s all very well for women; but a man, Betty, a man mun ha’ a sup of real stingo, lass. He mun ha’ summut to prop his ribs out, lass, as he delves through th’ chert and tood-stone. When tha weylds th’ maundrel (the pick), and I wesh th’ dishes, tha shall ha’ th’ drink, my wench, and I’ll ha’ th’ tea. Till then, prithee let me aloon, and dunna bother me, for it’s no use. It only kicks my monkey up.”

And Betty found that it was of no use; that it did only kick his monkey up, and so she let him alone, except when she could drop in a persuasive word or two. The mill-owners at Cressbrook and Miller’s Dale had forbidden any public-house nearer than Edale, and they had more than once called the people together to point out to them the mischiefs of drinking, and the advantages to be derived from the very savings of temperance. But all these measures, though they had some effect on the mill people, had very little on the miners. They either sent to Tideswell or Edale for kegs of beer to peddle at the mines, or they went thither themselves on receiving their wages.

And let no one suppose that David Dunster was worse than his fellows; or that Betty Dunster thought her case a particularly hard one. David “was pretty much of a muchness,” according to the country phrase, with the rest of his hard-working tribe, which was, and always had been, a hard-drinking tribe; and Betty, though she wished it different, did not complain, just because it was of no use, and because she was no worse off than her neighbors.

Often when she went to “carry in her hose” to Ashford, she left the children at home by themselves. She had no alternative. They were there in that solitary valley for many hours playing alone. And to them it was not solitary. It was all that they knew of life, and that all was very pleasant to them. In spring, they hunted for bird’s-nests in the copses, and amongst the rocks and gray stones that had fallen from them. In the copses built the blackbirds and thrushes: in the rocks the firetails; and the gray wagtails in the stones, which were so exactly of their own color, as to make it difficult to see them. In summer, they gathered flowers and berries, and in the winter they played at horses, kings, and shops, and sundry other things in the house.

On one of these occasions, a bright afternoon in autumn, the three children had rambled down the glen, and found a world of amusement in being teams of horses, in making a little mine at the foot of a tall cliff, and in marching for soldiers, for they had one day – the only time in their lives – seen some soldiers go through the village of Ashford, when they had gone there with their mother, for she now and then took them with her when she had something from the shop to carry besides her bundle of hose. At length they came to the foot of an open hill which swelled to a considerable height, with a round and climbable side, on which grew a wilderness of bushes, amid which lay scattered masses of gray crag. A small winding path went up this, and they followed it. It was not long, however, before they saw something which excited their eager attention. Little David, who was the guide, and assumed to himself much importance as the protector of his sisters, exclaimed, “See here!” and springing forward, plucked a fine crimson cluster of the mountain bramble. His sisters, on seeing this, rushed on with like eagerness. They soon forsook the little winding and craggy footpath, and hurried through sinking masses of moss and dry grass, from bush to bush and place to place. They were soon far up above the valley, and almost every step revealed to them some delightful prize. The clusters of the mountain-bramble, resembling mulberries, and known only to the inhabitants of the hills, were abundant, and were rapidly devoured. The dewberry was as eagerly gathered, – its large, purple fruit passing with them for blackberries. In their hands were soon seen posies of the lovely grass of Parnassus, the mountain cistus, and the bright blue geranium.

Higher and higher the little group ascended in this quest, till the sight of the wide, naked hills, and the hawks circling round the lofty, tower-like crags over their heads, made them feel serious and somewhat afraid.

“Where are we?” asked Jane, the elder sister. “Arn’t we a long way from hom?”

“Let us go hom,” said little Nancy. “I’m afreed here;” clutching hold of Jane’s frock.

“Pho, nonsense!” said David, “what are you afreed on? I’ll tak care on you, niver fear.”

And with this he assumed a bold and defying aspect, and said, “Come along; there are nests in th’ hazzels up yonder.”

He began to mount again, but the two girls hung back and said, “Nay, David, dunna go higher; we are both afreed;” and Jane added, “It’s a long wee from hom, I’m sure.”

“And those birds screechin’ so up there; I darna go up,” added little Nancy. They were the hawks that she meant, which hovered, whimpering and screaming, about the highest cliffs. David called them little cowards, but began to descend; and, presently, seeking for berries and flowers as they descended, they regained the little winding, craggy road, and, while they were calling to each other, discovered a remarkable echo on the opposite hill side. On this they shouted to it, and laughed, and were half-frightened when it laughed and shouted again. Little Nancy said it must be an old man in the inside of the mountain; at which they were all really afraid, though David put on a big look, and said, “Nonsense! it was nothing at all.” But Jane asked how nothing at all could shout and laugh as it did? and on this little Nancy plucked her again by the frock, and said in turn, “Oh, dear, let’s go hom!”

But at this David gave a wild whoop to frighten them, and when the hill whooped again, and the sisters began to run, he burst into laughter, and the strange spectral Ha! ha! ha! that ran along the inside of the hill as it were, completed their fear, and they stopped their ears with their hands, and scuttled away down the hill. But now David seized them, and pulling their hands down from their heads, he said, “See here! what a nice place, with the stones sticking out like seats. Why it’s like a little house; let us stay and play a bit here.” It was a little hollow in the hill side surrounded by projecting stones like an amphitheatre. The sisters were still afraid, but the sight of this little hollow with its seats of crag had such a charm for them that they promised David they would stop awhile, if he would promise not to shout and awake the echo. David readily promised this, and so they sat down; David proposed to keep a school, and cut a hazel wand from a bush and began to lord it over his two scholars in a very pompous manner. The two sisters pretended to be much afraid, and to read very diligently on pieces of flat stone which they had picked up. And then David became a serjeant and was drilling them for soldiers, and stuck pieces of fern into their hair for cockades. And then, soon after, they were sheep, and he was the shepherd; and he was catching his flock and going to shear them, and made so much noise that Jane cried, “Hold! there’s the echo mocking us.”