Varley was a scattered village lying at the very edge of the moor. The houses were built just where the valley began to dip down from the uplands, the depression being deep enough to shelter them from the winds which swept across the moor. Some of those which stood lowest were surrounded by a few stumpy fruit trees in the gardens, but the majority stood bleak and bare. From most of the houses the sound of the shuttle told that hand weaving was carried on within, and when the weather was warm women sat at the doors with their spinning wheels. The younger men for the most part worked as croppers in the factories in Marsden.
In good times Varley had been a flourishing village, that is to say its inhabitants had earned good wages; but no one passing through the bare and dreary village would have imagined that it had ever seen good days, for the greater proportion of the earnings had gone in drink, and the Varley men had a bad name even in a country and at a time when heavy drinking was the rule rather than the exception. But whatever good times it may have had they were gone now. Wages had fallen greatly and the prices of food risen enormously, and the wolf was at the door of every cottage. No wonder the men became desperate, and believing that all their sufferings arose from the introduction of the new machinery, had bound themselves to destroy it whatever happened.
A woman of whom he inquired for John Swintons cottage told him that it was the last on the left. Although he told himself that he had nothing to be afraid of, it needed all Neds determination to nerve himself to tap at the door of the low thatched cottage. A young woman opened it.
If you please, Ned said, I have come to see Bill; the doctor said he would see me. It was I who hurt him, but indeed I didnt mean to do it.
A noice bizness yoive made of it atween ee, the woman said, but in a not unkind voice. Whod ha thought as Bill would ha got hurted by such a little un as thou best; but coom in, he will be main glad to see ee, and thy feyther ha been very good in sending up all sorts o things for him. Hes been very nigh agooing whoam, but I believe them things kept un from it.
The cottage contained but two rooms. In a corner of the living room, into which Ned followed the woman, Bill Swinton lay upon a bed which Captain Sankey had sent up. Ned would not have known him again, and could scarce believe that the thin, feeble figure was the sturdy, strong built boy with whom he had struggled on the moor. His eyes filled with tears as he went up to the bedside.
I am so sorry! he said; I have grieved so all the time you have been ill.
Its all roight, young un, the boy said in a low voice, thars no call vor to fret. It warnt thy fault; thou couldnt not tell why oi would not let ee pass, and ye were roight enough to foight rather than to toorn back. I doant blame ee nohow, and thou stoodst up well agin me. Oi doant bear no malice vor a fair foight, not loikely. Thy feyther has been roight good to oi, and the things he sends oi up has done oi a power o good. Oi hoap as how they will let oi eat afore long; oi feels as if oi could hearty, but the doctor he woint let oi.
I hope in a few days he will let you, Ned said, and then I am sure father will send you up some nice things. I have brought you up some of my books for you to look at the pictures.
The boy looked pleased.
Oi shall like that, Bill said; but oi shant know what they be about.
But I will come up every Saturday if you will let me, and tell you the stories all about them.
Willee now? That will be main koinde o ye.
I dont think you are strong enough to listen today, Ned said, seeing how feebly the boy spoke; but I hope by next Saturday you will be much stronger. And now I will say goodby, for the doctor said that I must not talk too long.
So saying Ned left the cottage and made his way back to Marsden in better spirits than he had been for the last three weeks.
From that time Ned went up regularly for some weeks every Saturday to see Bill Swinton, to the great disgust of his schoolfellows, who could not imagine why he refused to join in their walks or games on those days; but he was well repaid by the pleasure which his visits afforded. The days passed very drearily to the sick boy, accustomed as he was to a life spent entirely in the open air, and he looked forward with eager longing to Neds visits.
On the occasion of the second visit he was strong enough to sit up in bed, and Ned was pleased to hear that his voice was heartier and stronger. He listened with delight as Ned read through the books he had brought him from end to end, often stopping him to ask questions as to the many matters beyond his understanding, and the conversations on these points were often so long that the continuance of the reading had to be postponed until the next visit. To Bill everything he heard was wonderful. Hitherto his world had ended at Marsden, and the accounts of voyages and travels in strange lands were full of surprise and interest to him. Especially he loved to talk to Ned of India, where the boy had lived up to the time when his father had received his wound, and Neds account of the appearance and manners of the people there were even more interesting to him than books.
At the end of two months after Neds first visit Bill was able to walk about with a stick, and Ned now discontinued his regular visits; but whenever he had a Saturday on which there was no particular engagement he would go for a chat with Bill, for a strong friendship had now sprung up between the lads.
On Neds side the feeling consisted partly of regret for the pain and injury he had inflicted upon his companion, partly in real liking for the honesty and fearlessness which marked the boys character. On Bills side the feeling was one of intense gratitude for the kindness and attention which Ned had paid him, for his giving up his play hours to his amusement, and the pains which he had taken to lighten the dreary time of his confinement. Added to this there was a deep admiration for the superior knowledge of his friend.
There was nothing, he often said to himself, as oi wouldnt do for that young un.
CHAPTER III: A CROPPER VILLAGE
Bad as were times in Varley, the two public houses, one of which stood at either end of the village, were for the most part well filled of an evening; but this, as the landlords knew to their cost, was the result rather of habit than of thirst. The orders given were few and far between, and the mugs stood empty on the table for a long time before being refilled. In point of numbers the patrons of the Brown Cow and the Spotted Dog were not unequal; but the Dog did a larger trade than its rival, for it was the resort of the younger men, while the Cow was the meeting place of the elders. A man who had neither wife nor child to support could manage even in these hard times to pay for his quart or two of liquor of an evening; but a pint mug was the utmost that those who had other mouths than their own to fill could afford.
Fortunately tobacco, although dear enough if purchased in the towns, cost comparatively little upon the moors, for scarce a week passed but some lugger ran in at night to some little bay among the cliffs on the eastern shore, and for the most part landed her bales and kegs in spite of the vigilance of the coast guard. So there were plenty of places scattered all over the moorland where tobacco could be bought cheap, and where when the right signal was given a noggin of spirits could be had from the keg which was lying concealed in the wood stack or rubbish heap. What drunkenness there was on the moors profited his majestys excise but little.
The evenings at the Cow were not lively. The men smoked their long pipes and sipped their beer slowly, and sometimes for half an hour no one spoke; but it was as good as conversation, for every one knew what the rest were thinking ofthe bad times, but no one had anything new to say about them. They were not brilliant, these sturdy Yorkshiremen. They suffered patiently and uncomplainingly, because they did not see that any effort of theirs could alter the state of things. They accepted the fact that the high prices were due to the war, but why the war was always going on was more than any of them knew. It gave them a vague satisfaction when they heard that a British victory had been won; and when money had been more plentiful, the occasion had been a good excuse for an extra bout of drinking, for most of them were croppers, and had in their time been as rough and as wild as the younger men were now; but they had learned a certain amount of wisdom, and shook their heads over the talk and doings of the younger men who met at the Dog.
Here there was neither quiet nor resignation, but fiery talk and stern determination; it was a settled thing here that the machines were responsible for the bad times. The fact that such times prevailed over the whole country in no way affected their opinion. It was not for them to deny that there was a war, that food was dear, and taxation heavy. These things might be; but the effect of the machinery came straight home to them, and they were convinced that if they did but hold together and wreck the machines prosperity would return to Varley.
The organization for resistance was extensive. There were branches in every village in West Yorkshire, Lancashire, Nottingham, and Derbyall acting with a common purpose. The members were bound by terrible oaths upon joining the society to be true to its objects, to abstain on pain of death from any word which might betray its secrets, and to carry into execution its orders, even if these should involve the slaying of a near relation proved to have turned traitor to the society.
Hitherto no very marked success had attended its doings. There had been isolated riots in many places; mills had been burned, and machinery broken. But the members looked forward to better things. So far their only successes had been obtained by threats rather than deeds, for many manufacturers had been deterred from adopting the new machinery by the receipt of threatening letters signed King Lud, saying that their factories would be burned and themselves shot should they venture upon altering their machinery.
The organ of communication between the members of the society at Varley and those in other villages was the blacksmith, or as he preferred to be called, the minister, John Stukeley, who on weekdays worked at the forge next door to the Spotted Dog, and on Sundays held services in Little Bethela tiny meeting house standing back from the road.
Had John Stukeley been busier during the week he would have had less time to devote to the cause of King Lud; but for many hours a day his fire was banked up, for except to make repairs in any of the frames which had got out of order, or to put on a shoe which a horse had cast on his way up the hill from Marsden, there was but little employment for him.
The man was not a Yorkshireman by birth, but came from Liverpool, and his small, spare figure contrasted strongly with those of the tall, square built Yorkshiremen, among whom he lived.
He was a good workman, but his nervous irritability, his self assertion, and impatience of orders had lost him so many places that he had finally determined to become his own master, and, coming into a few pounds at the death of his father, had wandered away from the great towns, until finding in Varley a village without a smith, he had established himself there, and having adopted the grievances of the men as his own, had speedily become a leading figure among them.
A short time after his arrival the old man who had officiated at Little Bethel had died, and Stukeley, who had from the first taken a prominent part in the service, and who possessed the faculty of fluent speech to a degree rare among the Yorkshiremen, was installed as his successor, and soon filled Little Bethel as it had never been filled before. In his predecessors time, small as the meeting house was, it had been comparatively empty; two or three men, half a dozen women, and their children being the only attendants, but it was now filled to crowding.
Stukeleys religion was political; his prayers and discourses related to the position of affairs in Varley rather than to Christianity. They were a downtrodden people whom he implored to burst the bonds of their Egyptian taskmasters. The strength he prayed for was the strength to struggle and to fight. The enemy he denounced was the capitalist rather than the devil.
Up to that time King Lud had but few followers in Varley; but the fiery discourses in Little Bethel roused among the younger men a passionate desire to right their alleged wrongs, and to take vengeance upon those denounced as their oppressors, so the society recruited its numbers fast. Stukeley was appointed the local secretary, partly because he was the leading spirit, partly because he alone among its members was able to write, and under his vigorous impulsion Varley became one of the leading centers of the organization in West Yorkshire.
It was on a Saturday evening soon after Bill Swinton had become convalescent. The parlor of the Brown Cow was filled with its usual gathering; a peat fire glowed upon the hearth, and two tallow candles burned somewhat faintly in the dense smoke. Mugs of beer stood on the tables, but they were seldom applied to the lips of the smokers, for they had to do service without being refilled through the long evening. The silence was broken only by the short puffs at the pipes. All were thinking over the usual topic, when old Gideon Jones unexpectedly led their ideas into another channel.
Oive heern, he said slowly, taking his pipe from his mouth, as how Nance Wilsons little gal is wuss.
Ay, indeed!
So oive heern;
Be she now? and various other exclamations arose from the smokers.
Gideon was pleased with the effect he had produced, and a few minutes later continued the subject.
It be the empty coopbud more nor illness, I expect.
There was another chorus of assent, and a still heartier one when he wound up the subject: These be hard toimes surely.
Thinking that he had now done sufficient to vindicate his standing as one of the original thinkers of the village, Gideon relapsed into silence and smoked away gravely, with his eyes fixed on the fire, in the post of honor on one side of which was his regular seat. The subject, however, was too valuable to be allowed to drop altogether, and Luke Marner brought it into prominence again by remarking:
They tell oi as how Nance has asked Bet Collins to watch by the rood soide to catch doctor as he droives whoam. He went out this arternoon to Retlow.
Oi doubt he woant do she much good; it be food, and not doctors stuff as the child needs, another remarked.
That be so, surely, went up in a general chorus, and then a newcomer who had just entered the room said:
Oi ha joost coom vrom Nances and Bill Swinton ha sent in a basin o soup as he got vrom the feyther o that boy as broke his leg. Nance war a feeding the child wi it, and maybe it will do her good. He ha been moighty koind to Bill, that chap hav.
He ha been that, Gideon said, after the chorus of approval had died away.
Oi seed t young un today a-sitting in front o th cottage, a-talking and laughing wi Bill.