The History of David Grieve

hich had looked

unfamiliar and exhausting that it wore him a good deal; and Hannah, when he came in at night, would wonder, with a start, whether he were beginning 'to break up.' But it possessed him more and more. Hannah would not give up the money, but David must have his rights. How could it be done? For the first time Reuben fell to calculation ov

whose proceedings-if they did but know it! -the arrival of future cheques in some measure depended. But Hannah had not the cleverness which makes the successful hypocrite. And for some time past there had been a strange unmanageable change in her feelings towards Sandy's orphans.

ces-though of these last he took no practical account whatever; and he must wait for his letter. So he went back ungraciously to his daily tasks. Meanwhile he and Louie, on the strength of the great

of the Scout, and then at the 'Snake Inn' for the Sheffield side-when the strayed sheep of the year were restored to their owners, came

hours discussing them at the smithy-when suddenly an experience overtook him, which for the mo

on th

e one side with the fervour, the yearnings, the strong formless poetry of English evangelical faith, and repelled on the other by various features in the different sects from which they came-by the hierarchical strictness of the Wesleyan organisation, or the looseness of the Congregationalists, or the coldness of the Church. They had come together to seek the Lord in some way more intimate, more moving, more effectual than any they had yet found; and in this pathetic search for the 'rainbow gold' of faith they were perpetually brought up aga

een about him. After a few weeks there began to be a buzz in the little town on the subject of Mr. Dyson. The 'Christian Brethren' meeting-room, a long low upper chamber formerly occupied by half a dozen hand-looms, was crowded on Sundays, morning and evening, not only by the Brethren, but by migrants from

ther to Reuben Grieve, meeting him one day in th

alf contemptuous, half obstinate silence on these occasions which for a man like Reuben made argument impossible. To his morbid inner sense the boy seemed to have entered irrevocably on the broad path which leadeth to destruction. Perhaps in another year he would be drinking and thievi

if folk spoke true there would be a shindy worth joining in. Meanwhile, the pressure of his own affairs made the excitement of the ne

ully sometimes how he could ever have demeaned himself so far as to find excitement in the liquor or the company of the 'Cow.' Half-way down to the town, as he was passing the foundry, whence he had drawn the pan whi

ar are y

ked round at

r yo

hich wore an incongruous expression of anxiety and dejection, shone wit

yer-meetin, tha

an I'll ask yo, Davy, if happen yo're goin town way, not to talk ony

ing his head, and stepping more rapidly

ent. 'What's wrong wi yo, Tom? Yo've got no more s

me! I haven't slep this three neets for shoutin an cryin! It's th' conviction o' sin, Davy. Th' devil seems a howdin me, an I conno pull away, not whativer. T' new minister says, 'Dunnot yo pull. Let Je

m he was lounging in a half-drunken condition outside the door

yer-meetin?' he i

hed-an it's late

' room in old Simes's shed

corn-boggart; an I wudna miss ony o' Mr. Dyson'

a run; David, howev

ravado, when they had passed the bridge and the K

ted a hill, at the top of which he p

a rumpus, Davy,' he

me out?' asked David, mockingly. 'I'll mak no

alked on

ual pride. Public reprobation applied to a certain order of offences makes a very marketable kind of fame, as the author of Manfred knew very well. David in his small obscure way was supplying anoth

f going into prayer-meeting with David Grieve in tow; and even th

ill the minister began there were many curious glances thrown at David. It was a prayer

sible pushed to the side, and at the end a rough platform of loose pla

s-leader. Now, in consequence partly of some inward crisis, partly of revolt against an 'unspiritual' superintendent, he had thrown up mill and Methodism together, and come to live on the doles of the Christian Brethren at Clough End. He had been preaching on the moors already during the day, and was tired

who had expected a prayer. The voice, as generally happens with a successful revivalist preacher, was

to do to-night is to take your lives to pieces-take them to pieces, an look close into them, as you've seen them do at the mill, perhaps, with a machine that wants cleaning. I want to find out what's wrong wi them, what they're good for, whose work they do-God's or the devil's ... First let me take the mill-hands. Perhaps I know most about their life, for I went to work in a cotton-mill when I was eight years old, and I only left it six months ago. I have seen men and wome

d on such burning matters as the tyranny of overlookers, the temper of masters, the rubs between the different classes of 'hands,' the behaviour of 'minders' to the 'piecers' employed by them, and so on. The sermon at one time was more like a dialogue between preacher and congregation

sharpness. 'Ay, that's how you live-them's the things you spend your time and your minds on. You laugh, and I laugh-not a bad sort

his last words had been almost a cry of pain. After the easy give and take of

there be indeed? If you don't keep a sharp eye on your work the overlooker 'ull know the reason why in double-quick time!... But there comes a break, perhaps, for one reason or another. Does the Lord get it? What a thing to ask, to be sure! Why, there are other spinners close by, waiting for rovings, or leaving off for "baggin," and a bit of talk and a bad word or two are a deal more fun, and come easier than praying. Half-past five o'clock at last-knocking-off time. Then you begin to think of amusing yourselves. There's loafing about the streets, which never comes amiss, and there's smoking and the public for you bigger ones,

but I know some, and I can guess some. You are not shut up all day with the roar of the machines in your ears, and the cotton-fluff choking your lungs. You have to live harder, perhaps. You've

un, with the flash of His lightning, with His clouds which dropped fatness, and with the heavens which declare His glory? Nothing between them and the Most High, if they would open their dull eyes and see! And more than that. Not a bit of their life,' but had been dear to the Lord Jesus-but He had s

, when he could, through the coarse panes of factory glass, the dim blue outlines of distant moors. Here were noise, crowd, coarse jesting, mean tyrannies, uncongenial company-ever

d. Oratory, of any sort, never failed to stir him extraordinarily. Once even he would have jumped up to speak, but Tom Mullins's watchful hand closed on his arm. Davy shook it off angrily, but was perforce reminded of his promise. And Mr. Dyson was swift in all th

and in the mill. The greedy, vicious hours went by,

ay

vined what was coming. To his dying day David, at least, never forgot the picture of a sinner's death agony, a sinner's doom, which followed. As to the first, i

r; t' doctor's gien him up-and a good thing

ay. Then will your fear come upon you as a storm

nutes afterwards they tore away her body from the iron teeth which had destroyed her. But I, a lad of twelve, had seen her face ju

all the eating and drinking, the betting and swearing, the warm sun, the kind light, the indulgent parents and friends left behind; nothing for ever and ever but the torments whic

esson for the asking. While your body has been enjoying itself in sin, your soul has been dying-dying; and when at the last you bid it rise and go to the Father, you will find it just as helple

nd passion of an agonised soul. The man speaking had himself graven the terrors of it on his inmost nature through many a week of demoniacal possession. But since that original experience of fire which gave it birth, there had come to its elaboration a strange artistic instinct. Day after day the preacher had repeated it to hushed congregations, and with every repetition, almost, there had come a greater sharpening of the light and shade, a ke

fro on the form. A little later, a small fair-haired boy of twelve sprang up from the form where he had been sittin

words this mornin; I didn't, sir; it wor t' big uns made me; th

wringing his hands, the te

le broke on the set face, he stepped up to the lad, threw his

od of the Lamb. Look away from yourselves-away from sin-away from hell-to the blessed Lord, that suffered and died and rose again; just for what? For this only-that He might, with His own pierced hands, draw

rom the upland farms, shop-boys, mill-hands, strained f

in historical shape, have gone the noblest poetry, the purest passion, the intensest spiritual vision of the highest races, since the human mind began to work. And the historical shape may crumble; but the n