The History of David Grieve

er's mental growth, as well perhaps of the matters brutally raised and crudely sifted in Jerry Timmins's parlour, had been towards a harder and more sceptical habit of mind. For the m

farmers in the Kinder Valley and thereabouts joined in it. They went together by train to Masholme, made their purchases, and then drove their sheep over the moors home, filling the wide ferny stretches and the rough upland road with a patriarchal wealth of flocks, and putting up at night at the village inns, while their charges strayed at will over the hills. These yearly j

ched battles on the way home, showed himself a more respectable antagonist, on the whole, than his assailants had bargained for, and was thenceforward contemptuously sent to Coventry. 'Yoong man,' said an old farmer to him once reprovingly, after one of these "rumpuses," 'yor temper woan't mouldy wi keepin.' Reuben coming

hole business-of the endless hills, the company, the bleak grey weather. While the rest of the party were mopping brows and draining ale-pots in the farmers' public, he was employing himself in aimles

've coom fro a di

ase of cheerful music. There was a motherliness in it-a something, for

dark, richly coloured face she had had a curiosity to see; then he added a

year passt. But I doan't know as I've seen yo afoor. Yo're nobbut a yoong 'un. Eh, but we ge

, lifting his eyebrows a little, and lookin

d breaking into a laugh, ''taint becos the church is onything much to look at. 'Taint nowt out o' t' common that

his penetrating eyes, the size and beauty of which she

he's allus promised to lend 'em me. But soomhow I doan't get th' time. An in gineral I've naw moor use for a book nor a coo has for clogs. But she's terr'ble famous, is Miss Bronte, now-an her sisters too, pore young women. Yo should see t' visitors' book in th' church. Aw t' grand foak as iver wor. They cooms fro Lunnon a purpo

s, and they mounted the straggling village street together towards the church. As they neared it

Miss Emily used to sit o' Sundays-An theer's th' owd house. Yo used to be 'lowed to see Miss Charlotte's room, where she did her writin, but they tell me yo can't be let in now. Seems strange, doan't it, 'at onybody should be real fond o' that place? When yo go by it i' winter, soomtimes, it lukes that lonesome, with t' churchyard coomin up close roun it, it's enoof to gie a body th

dering over the bare stone house towards which the passionate hea

lk fro Miss Emily's bukes-soa I'm towd. Bit there's rough doins on t' moors soomtimes, I'll uphowd yo! An Miss Emily had eyes like gimlets-they seed re

books; how the men of the Mechanics' Institute (the roof of which she pointed out to him) went crazy over 'Shirley'; how everybody about 'thowt Miss Bronte had bin puttin ov 'em into prent,' and didn't know whether to be pleased or pique; how, as the noise made by 'Jane Eyre' and 'Shirley' grew, a wave of excitement passed through the whole countryside, and people came from Halifax, and Bradford, and Huddersfield-aye, an Lunnon soomtoimes '-to Haworth church on a Sunday, to

moved away towards the church, 'I cud ha sat down an cried my eyes out. But if she'd ha seen me she'd ha nobbut said, "Martha, get your house straight, an doan't fret for me!" She had sich

high collars, and a general look of Lord Byron, haranguing those about him on the iniquity of removing the pews, in a passionate undertone, which occasionally rose high above the key prescribed by decorum. It was a half-baked eloquence, sadly liable to bathos, divided, indeed, between sentences ringing with the great w

houlders already making themselves felt in a crowd, his eyes beginning to glow with the dissenter's hatred of parsons. In the full

se, sir. Move on if yo're goin to th' vest

But the voice of authority within its own gates is strong, and the champion of outraged genius collap

vid, following her brother's triumph with looks of adm

frown. ''Tis a black shame,' he said;

I'st be reet sorry when Miss Charlotte's seat's gone. But

vestry, where the visitors' books were being displayed. Here the Byronic young man was attempting to pick a fresh quarrel with the sexton, by way of recovering himself with his party. But he to

Them 'at has to eat th' egg knaws best whether it is addled or no-to my thinkin,' an

t the sexton, but for the life of him he could not get them out. In the presence of that indiffer

arted from the woman who had brought him in, lingered behind, before that plain t

, age

, ag

the 39th yea

r the fading yellow light streamed in, and with it a cool wind which chased little eddies of dust about the pavement. In the dusk the three names-black on the white-stood out with a stern and y

home, yoong man. My sister she told me to say good neet to yer, an

te life proved to be so melting to the temper that even David's began to yield. And a little incident of the walk mollified him completely. As they turned a corner they came upon a bit of waste land, and there in the centre of an admiring company was the sexton's enemy, mounted on a bit

'Lor' bless yo, it don't hurt me. But I do loike a bit o' good speakin, 'at I do. If fine worrds wor penny loaves, that yoong

ad gone a hundred yards further, instead of f

a seet o' yan o' Miss Bronte's tales for an hour?' he said,

for intelligent patronage. 'Coom your ways in, and we'll see if we can't oblige y

oy and eagerness he showed so touched the sexton that, after inquiring as to the lad's belongings, and remembering that in his time he had enjoyed many a pipe and 'glass o' yell' wit

moor and wood he lay full length on the grass revelling in one or other of his new possessions. He had a voracious way of tearing out the heart of a book first of all, and then beginning it

and history. Now the walls of this real world were suddenly pushed back as it were on all sides, and there was an inrush of crowd, excitement, and delight. Human beings like those he heard of or talked with every day-factory hands and mill-owners, parsons, squires, lads and lasses-the Yorkes, and Robert Moore, Squeers, Smike, Kate Nick

began to realise the problem of his own life with a singular keenness and clearness. Then-last of all-the record of Franklin's life,-of the steady rise of the ill-treated printer's devil

inder Valley lay before them, sparkling in a double radiance of morning and of spring. David lingered a minute or two behind his uncle. What a glory of light

and exultation took possession of him. The tide of will for which he had been waiting all these months ha

with shame, then with hope. Had he thrown away his friend? Rumour said that things were

then. And Louie? Patience! He would settle everything. Meanwhile, he was regretfully persuaded that if y